榨

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

Tips

usage
榨 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 木 on the left hints at the original wooden press used to squeeze oil from seeds.

Components

radical
木 mù
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 榨 in the wood-tools family with 槌 (mallet), 桶 (bucket), 杠 (lever), 棒 (rod).
phonetic
窄 zhǎi
narrow (here phonetic)
Right side 窄 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

榨 zhà