verb HSK 7-9 #955

Meanings

  1. 1 to smash
  2. 2 to pound
  3. 3 to break
  4. 4 to fail (colloquial)

Examples

HSK 1
Zhècì kǎoshì zá le.
I bombed this exam.
HSK 7-9
Tā yì quán zásuì le chuānghù de bōli.
He smashed the window glass with one punch.

Tips

usage
can mean physically smashing something, but colloquially it also means to mess up or fail at something (砸了 = 'blew it').

Components

radical
shí
stone; rock
Left stone radical - the indexing semantic. Smashing involves a heavy rock-like force dropped or swung onto a target. The radical correctly tags in the stone-impact family alongside (break), (chop), (shatter), (collide). The colloquial 'to fail/bomb' sense extends from 'the result smashed flat'.
phonetic
to encircle; one revolution
Right component supplies the sound (zā → zá, tone shift only). by itself means 'one full circuit, to encircle'. The encircling imagery dovetails neatly with the swinging arc of a hammer - phonetic with a faint mnemonic echo of rotational impact.

Stroke Order