硌

gè
verb #40,685

Meanings

  1. 1 (of something hard or rough) to press uncomfortably against the body
  2. 2 to chafe
  3. 3 to hurt by digging in (like a stone in one's shoe)

Examples

HSK 2
Chuáng shàng yǒu shénme dōngxi gè de wǒ shuì bù zháo.
Something on the bed is poking me - I can't sleep.
HSK 7-9
Xié lǐ yǒu kē shízǐ gè jiǎo.
There's a pebble in my shoe digging into my foot.

Tips

memory
硌 = 石 (stone radical) + 各. The stone radical is the giveaway: it's specifically about a hard object pressing into flesh. Think of stepping on a Lego brick: that sensation is 硌.
mistakes
Colloquial, pronounced gè in this 'press uncomfortably' sense. The character also has a literary reading luò (in 硌牙 'gritty against teeth'), but spoken Mandarin almost always uses gè.

Components

radical
石 shí
stone; rock
石 is the stone radical and gives 硌 its image, a pebble or stone pressing uncomfortably against skin or shoe. The verb captures the feeling of something hard digging in. Same radical in 砍, 碰, 破, stone-and-impact vocabulary.
phonetic
各 gè
each
各 gives the sound gè exactly, same tone. The 'each' meaning is irrelevant here, pure phonetic borrowing. Same series gives 路, 客, 格, all sharing similar endings from old Chinese.

Stroke Order

硌 gè