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切

qiè / qiē
adjective #1,617

Meanings

  1. 1 close to; intimate
  2. 2 eager; earnest
  3. 3 definitely; absolutely (in imperatives)
  4. 4 to correspond to; to fit
  5. 5 to grind

Examples

一切都很好。
Yīqiè dōu hěn hǎo.
Everything is fine.
请注意安全，切记！
Qǐng zhùyì ānquán, qièjì!
Please pay attention to safety — be sure to remember!
她亲切地跟我打招呼。
Tā qīnqiè de gēn wǒ dǎ zhāohū.
She greeted me warmly.

Tips

usage
qiè covers the abstract / figurative senses — 'pressed close, urgent, earnest, exact'. Common compounds: 一切 (everything), 亲切 (cordial), 迫切 (urgent), 密切 (close, intimate), 确切 (exact), 切记 (be sure to remember), 切忌 (by all means avoid). The physical-cutting sense uses 切 — see that entry.
history
In classical phonology 切 names the fǎnqiè system — spelling a character's reading using two others (initial of the first + final of the second). Pre-pinyin Chinese dictionaries indicated pronunciation this way for nearly two millennia; the term survives in linguistic writing today.

Components

radical
刀 dāo
knife
Right knife radical — the indexing radical, picturing a curved blade. Marks 切 as a cutting action. Same family as 分, 剪, 划. The figurative readings 'close to, eager' (qiè) come from a blade pressed close against its target — intimate contact, which is why the secondary reading shifts to abstract proximity.
phonetic
七 qī
seven (here phonetic)
Left 七 supplies the sound: qī → qiē / qiè with only a tone shift. The numerical 'seven' meaning is irrelevant here — pure sound carrier. Together with the knife on the right, the picture is 'a knife producing the qī-sound', the rasping noise of cutting.

Stroke Order

切 qiè