碴 (chá): shard, fragment (of glass, porc…

Meanings

1 shard, fragment (of glass, porcelain, etc.)
2 stubble (of beard or hair)
3 (colloquial, Beijing) a quarrel; bad blood; grudge

Characters

碴

chá

shard; stubble; (colloq.) quarrel

Examples

小心，地上有玻璃碴。

Xiǎoxīn, dìshàng yǒu bōli chá.

Careful, there are glass shards on the ground.

他下巴上长出一层胡子碴。

Tā xiàba shàng zhǎng chū yī céng húzi chá.

A layer of beard stubble has grown on his chin.

他俩之间有点碴儿，最好别让他们碰面。

Tāliǎ zhījiān yǒudiǎn chár, zuìhǎo bié ràng tāmen pèngmiàn.

There's a bit of bad blood between those two; best not let them meet.

Tips

register

In Beijing speech 找碴儿 zhǎo chár means 'to pick a fight / nitpick' — literally 'looking for a sharp edge to grab onto'. The image of jagged glass shards underlies the slang meaning of grudges and quarrels.

Components

radical

石 shí

stone

Stone radical on the left, the indexing radical. 碴 means a sharp fragment or shard — broken glass, chipped pottery, beard stubble — all hard, splinter-like things. The radical groups it with 砖 brick, 碎 to smash, 砸 to crush, 磨 to grind, all hard-material chars.

phonetic

查 chá

to check; to investigate (here phonetic)

Right side 查 supplies the sound — chá straight across with no shift. There is a faint sense of inspecting that fits the imagery of finding a sharp shard. Same phonetic appears in 楂 hawthorn and 渣 dregs, both keeping the chá reading.