睬 (cǎi): to pay attention to

Meanings

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

Characters

睬

cǎi

to pay attention to / to notice

Examples

他不理不睬，根本不回应。

Tā bùlǐ bù cǎi, gēnběn bù huíyìng.

He completely ignored it, not responding at all.

她睬都不睬他，径直走了出去。

Tā cǎi dōu bù cǎi tā, jìngzhí zǒu le chūqù.

She didn't pay him any attention and walked straight out.

Tips

usage

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

Components

radical

目 mù

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 睬 as a seeing/noticing verb: to acknowledge someone with a glance. Same family as 看 look, 眼 eye, 睛 eyeball, 瞧 to glance.

phonetic

采 cǎi

to pick; gather (here phonetic)

Right 采 supplies the sound directly: cǎi → cǎi. Faint semantic flavour too — 采 means 'a hand picking from a tree,' and 睬 picks someone out with the eye for a glance. Almost always negated: 不睬 ignore, 不理不睬 give the cold shoulder.