缀 (zhuì): to adorn

Meanings

1 to adorn
2 to embellish
3 to stitch/sew on
4 to connect
5 affix

Characters

缀

zhuì

to adorn/to stitch/to attach

Examples

她的裙子上缀满了小花。

Tā de qúnzi shang zhuì mǎn le xiǎo huā.

Her skirt was adorned all over with little flowers.

夜空中繁星点缀。

Yèkōng zhōng fánxīng diǎnzhuì.

The night sky was dotted with countless stars.

Tips

usage

缀 most commonly appears in the compound 点缀 (to embellish/add as a decorative touch) and in linguistic terms like 前缀 (prefix), 后缀 (suffix), 中缀 (infix). As a standalone verb, it has a literary, classical flavor.

Components

radical

纟 sī

silk (radical form of 糸)

Left silk radical - the side-form of 糸, picturing twisted silk threads. The indexing element. The thread is the tool here: stitching, sewing, embroidering, and linking are all done with needle and silk. Puts 缀 in the thread family with 织 (weave), 纺 (spin), 绣 (embroider), 编 (knit), 缝 (sew).

phonetic

叕 zhuó

to join; connect

Right 叕 supplies the sound - zhuó drifting to zhuì through tone change. Beautifully, 叕 itself means 'to join': it pictures four 又 (right hands) reaching to grasp one another, the literal image of multiple things linking up. Combined with silk on the left, the picture is plain: silk + joining = sewing pieces together. Phonetic and semantic in one stroke.