钊 (zhāo): to encourage; to urge on

Meanings

1 to encourage; to urge on
2 (archaic) to file down; to cut

Characters

钊

zhāo

to encourage

Examples

李大钊是中国共产党的早期创始人之一。

Lǐ Dàzhāo shì Zhōngguó Gòngchǎndǎng de zǎoqī chuàngshǐrén zhīyī.

Li Dazhao was one of the early founders of the Communist Party of China.

钊字有勉励之意，常用于人名。

Zhāo zì yǒu miǎnlì zhī yì, cháng yòngyú rénmíng.

The character zhao means to encourage, and is often used in given names.

Tips

culture

Best known from 李大钊, a founding figure of the Chinese Communist Party. The word means 'to encourage', which is why it is a popular given-name character.

Components

radical

钅 jīn

metal

Left-side metal radical, the side form of 金. The original sense was filing or cutting metal; the modern 'encourage' meaning grew out of that idea of sharpening.

semantic

刂 dāo

knife

Right-side knife radical, the upright side form of 刀. Knife plus metal pictures the act of filing metal down — the character's earliest meaning.