滑 (huá) · to slip; to slide

Meanings

1 to slip; to slide
2 slippery; smooth
3 cunning; crafty

Characters

滑

huá

slippery; smooth; to slide

Examples

HSK 3

孩子们在冰上滑来滑去。

Háizi men zài bīngshàng huá lái huá qù.

The children slid back and forth on the ice.

HSK 5

地上很滑，小心别摔倒。

Dìshàng hěn huá, xiǎoxīn bié shuāidǎo.

The ground is slippery, be careful not to fall.

HSK 7-9

这个人很滑，不好对付。

Zhège rén hěn huá, bùhǎo duìfu.

This person is very cunning, hard to deal with.

Tips

usage

滑 appears in many sports: 滑冰 (ice skating), 滑雪 (skiing), 滑板 (skateboarding). The core meaning is smooth, gliding motion.

usage

滑稽 (huájī) means 'funny/comical' - a surprisingly common compound. 光滑 (guānghuá) means 'smooth and glossy.'

Components

radical

氵 shuǐ

water (left-side form)

Three drops of water on the left - the contracted side-form of 水. Anchors 滑 in the liquid family alongside 河, 海, 油, 汤. A wet surface is the prototype of slippery, so the radical carries the meaning directly: water is what makes things slide.

phonetic

骨 gǔ

bone

Right component supplies the sound: 骨 gǔ → huá through Old Chinese sound shift in the velars. 骨 also adds a faint semantic flavour - the smoothness of a polished bone, or the way joints glide. Same phonetic in 猾 huá (cunning), reinforcing the 'slippery / crafty' sense extended in 狡滑.