赊 (shē): to buy or sell on credit

Meanings

1 to buy or sell on credit
2 to defer payment
3 (literary) distant; long (in time)

Characters

赊

shē

to buy on credit (radical 贝 "shell/money")

Examples

老板，这次能不能赊一下账？

Lǎobǎn, zhècì néngbùnéng shē yīxià zhàng?

Boss, can I put this on credit this time?

他从不赊东西。

Tā cóngbù shē dōngxī.

He never buys things on credit.

Tips

history

" The character carries the 贝 ("shell/money") radical, signalling its commercial origins: shells were China's earliest currency, so 贝 marks money/value words. The famous 阿Q 鲁迅 story has 阿Q 赊 a couple bowls of wine — capturing the everyday small-credit economy of pre-modern village shops.

Components

radical

贝 bèi

cowrie; money

Cowrie radical on the left — the early-China currency shell, marker for anything financial. Carries the meaning of 赊: buying on credit, taking goods now and settling the bill later, an explicitly monetary transaction. Sits with 账 account, 货 goods, 贷 loan, 贸 trade — the same family of money-handling words built on this little shell.

phonetic

佘 shé

surname (here phonetic)

Right side 佘 supplies the sound — shé shifting to shē, a regular tone change. 佘 itself is a rare surname with no semantic relation to credit; pure phonetic. The common compound 赊账 (shēzhàng) means 'to put it on the tab' — a familiar concept in small village shops where neighbours settled accounts at month's end.