踏 (tà): to step on; to tread on

Meanings

1 to step on; to tread on
2 to trample; to stamp

Characters

踏

tà

to step on; to tread

Examples

请不要踏草坪。

Qǐng búyào tà cǎopíng.

Please don't step on the lawn.

他踏上了回乡的路。

Tā tà shàng le huíxiāng de lù.

He set foot on the road home.

脚踏实地做事。

Jiǎotà-shídì zuòshì.

Do things with your feet firmly on the ground.

Tips

usage

踏 has a literary / formal feel. Common expressions: 踏上 (to set foot on, to embark on), 踏青 (spring outing, literally 'treading on green'), 脚踏实地 (down-to-earth).

memory

足 (foot) radical — stepping with your foot.

Components

radical

足 zú

foot

Foot radical on the left — the indexing semantic. 足 is itself a picture of a leg with a foot. 踏 is the prototypical 'step on / tread' verb, so the foot radical sits where the foot does. Joins the foot-action family: 跑 (run), 跳 (jump), 跟 (follow), and 跨 (stride) — all left-foot-radical verbs.

phonetic

沓 tà

flowing water; talkative (here phonetic)

Right component supplies the sound: tà → tà, exact match. 沓 itself is 水 (water) under 曰 (speak), originally meaning 'rushing speech' or 'piled up like flowing water'. As a phonetic it also yields 蹋 (also 'tread' — there's near-doubling between 踏 and 蹋), keeping the ta-rime tightly.