糟 (zāo): dregs; sediment (of wine)

Meanings

1 dregs; sediment (of wine)
2 rotten; messy; in a terrible state
3 terrible; awful; too bad

Characters

糟

zao

messy; rotten; dregs

Examples

今天的天气真糟。

Jīntiān de tiānqì zhēn zāo.

Today's weather is really terrible.

事情被他搞糟了。

Shìqíng bèi tā gǎo zāo le.

He messed things up.

糟了！我忘带钥匙了。

Zāo le! Wǒ wàng dài yàoshi le.

Oh no! I forgot to bring my keys.

他的身体状况很糟。

Tā de shēntǐ zhuàngkuàng hěn zāo.

His physical condition is very bad.

Tips

usage

糟 as an exclamation (糟了！) means "Oh no!" or "Shoot!" - used when something goes wrong. 糟蹋 means "to waste/ruin/spoil."

memory

The character has 米 (rice) on the left - dregs from fermenting rice into wine. Something that's gone bad, like spoiled leftovers.

Components

radical

米 mǐ

rice; grain

Left rice radical - the indexing semantic. The original sense of 糟 was the leftover grain dregs at the bottom of the wine vat after fermentation; that fits the rice family naturally. From physical dregs the meaning extended to "mess, ruined state" (糟糕 awful).

phonetic

曹 cáo

company; group

Right 曹 supplies the sound - cáo shifted to zāo, a regular initial change in this rime group. Same phonetic family: 槽 (cáo, trough), 漕 (cáo, water-transport), 遭 (zāo, to encounter). The shared cluster makes the sound easy to remember once you know any one member.