cǎi
verb #20,129

Meanings

  1. 1 to pay attention to
  2. 2 to take notice of
  3. 3 to care for (usually used in the negative)

Examples

HSK 6
Tā bù lǐ bù cǎi, gēnběn bù huíyìng.
He completely ignored it, not responding at all.
HSK 7-9
Tā cǎi dōu bù cǎi tā, jìngzhí zǒu le chūqù.
She didn't pay him any attention and walked straight out.

Tips

usage
is almost exclusively used in negative constructions: 不睬, 不理睬, 不理不睬. You will rarely see used affirmatively. It means to acknowledge someone's presence or words.

Components

radical
eye
Left eye radical, the indexing element - originally a horizontal pictograph of an eye and pupil, rotated upright so the dashes inside became the iris. Marks as a seeing/noticing verb: to acknowledge someone with a glance. Same family as look, eye, eyeball, to glance.
phonetic
cǎi
to pick; gather
Right supplies the sound directly: cǎi → cǎi. Faint semantic flavour too - means 'a hand picking from a tree,' and picks someone out with the eye for a glance. Almost always negated: 不睬 ignore, 不理不睬 give the cold shoulder.

Stroke Order

cǎi