傻

shǎ
adjective HSK 5 #747

Meanings

  1. 1 foolish
  2. 2 stupid
  3. 3 dumbfounded

Examples

HSK 2
Nǐ bié nàme shǎ.
Don't be so silly.
HSK 4
Wǒ dāngshí dōu kàn shǎ le.
I was dumbfounded watching it.
HSK 6
Tā xiào de xiàng gè shǎguā.
He laughed like a fool.

Tips

usage
傻 can be affectionate among close friends/couples: 你真傻 (you're so silly). 傻瓜 = fool/dummy, also sometimes used affectionately.
mistakes
傻 is milder than 笨 (stupid/clumsy). 傻 implies naivety; 笨 implies lack of intelligence or skill.

Components

radical
亻 rén
person (left-side radical)
Person radical on the left - the side-form of 人, indexing 傻 as a description of a human trait. Same radical anchors 傻 alongside 你, 他, 们, 体, 仙 - the family of human-state characters. Here it tags "foolish" as a quality of a person rather than a thing.
semantic
囟 xìn
fontanelle; top of the skull
Top-right 囟 - depicts the soft spot on a baby's skull, the unhardened crown of the head. Inside 傻 it stands for an undeveloped, infantile mind: the brain still soft and unformed. A vivid mnemonic for "simple-headed, foolish."
semantic
八 bā
eight; split; spread apart
Middle-right 八 - two short strokes splaying outward, ancient symbol of dividing or scattering. Below the soft skull above, it suggests thoughts spreading every which way without focus. Adds the "scatter-brained" nuance to 傻.
semantic
夂 zhǐ
to follow; trailing footstep
Bottom-right 夂 - a downward foot, the trailing-step radical seen in 冬, 处, 各. Here it pictures someone walking aimlessly, plodding along. The full right side stacks soft-skull + scattered + slow-foot = the prototypical "simpleton walking around in a daze."

Stroke Order

傻 shǎ