zhà
verb HSK 7-9 #8,439

Meanings

  1. 1 to press
  2. 2 to squeeze
  3. 3 to extract (juice, oil)

Examples

HSK 6
Zhè jiā gōngchǎng zhà huāshēng yóu.
This factory presses peanut oil.
HSK 7-9
Tā měitiān zǎoshang zhà yī bēi chéngzhī.
She squeezes a glass of orange juice every morning.
HSK 7-9
Lǎobǎn yīzhí zài zhàqǔ gōngrén de láodònglì.
The boss has been exploiting the workers' labor.

Tips

usage
is used literally for pressing juice/oil (榨汁, 榨油) and figuratively for exploitation (榨取, to exploit/squeeze out). 榨汁机 = juicer.
memory
The wood radical on the left hints at the original wooden press used to squeeze oil from seeds.

Components

radical
tree; wood
Tree radical on the left - the indexing radical. Old presses were wooden contraptions: a screw or wedge driving a heavy timber block down onto fruit or seeds. The radical anchors in the wood-tools family with (mallet), (bucket), (lever), (rod).
phonetic
zhǎi
narrow (here phonetic)
Right side supplies the sound (zhǎi → zhà with tone shift) and a perfect semantic echo: a press works by squeezing material into a narrower and narrower space. The fit between phonetic and meaning here is unusually tight - every juice extractor is a controlled 'narrowing.'

Stroke Order

zhà