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p8nda BETA
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格

gé
noun HSK 7-9 #1,544

Meanings

  1. 1 square; grid; lattice; frame
  2. 2 compartment; partition; slot (within a larger unit)
  3. 3 standard; norm; specification
  4. 4 character; disposition; style; aesthetic tone
  5. 5 (linguistics) grammatical case
  6. 6 classifier for compartments, slots, or cells

Examples

他的性格很好。
Tā de xìnggé hěn hǎo.
He has a good personality.
这个不合格。
Zhège bù hégé.
This one doesn't meet the standard.
请在第一格里写你的名字。
Qǐng zài dìyī gé lǐ xiě nǐ de míngzi.
Please write your name in the first box.

Tips

usage
格 carries two linked senses — physical 'grid / compartment' (a square on a form, a slot in a drawer) and abstract 'standard / character' (the box you fit into). Hugely productive in compounds: 性格 (personality), 格外 (especially), 合格 (qualified), 价格 (price), 风格 (style), 严格 (strict).
register
A rare gē reading exists in onomatopoeic redirects (e.g. older dictionaries list 格格 as a variant of 咯咯 'clucking / giggling'), but in modern use you'll almost never see it — 格 is gé in essentially every compound, and the Qing-era princess title 格格 is also read with gé.

Components

radical
木 mù
tree; wood
Left indexing wood radical — a pictograph of a tree. 格 originally referred to the wooden lattice or grid framework of a window or partition. The wood radical anchors it in the carpentry family alongside 架 (rack), 板 (board), and 桌 (table).
phonetic
各 gè
each (here phonetic)
Right 各 supplies the sound (gè → gé with tone shift). Same phonetic family: 客 (guest), 落 (fall), 路 (road), 略 (omit), 阁 (pavilion). 各 also lends a faint flavor of 'each thing in its slot' — fitting the frame/grid/standard sense.

Stroke Order

格 gé