刮 (guā) · to scrape; to scratch

Meanings

1 to scrape; to scratch
2 to blow (of wind)
3 to shave

Characters

刮

guā

to scrape; to blow (wind)

Examples

HSK 3

外面刮大风了。

Wàimiàn guā dàfēng le.

It's very windy outside.

HSK 5

把锅底刮干净。

Bǎ guōdǐ guā gānjìng.

Scrape the bottom of the pot clean.

HSK 6

他每天早上刮胡子。

Tā měitiān zǎoshang guā húzi.

He shaves every morning.

Tips

usage

刮风 (guā fēng) is the standard way to say 'the wind blows.' Unlike English, the verb 刮 takes the wind as its object: 刮风 literally = 'scrape wind.'

memory

The knife radical 刂 on the right suggests a scraping/cutting action - scraping a surface, scraping whiskers off your face, or wind scraping across the land.

Components

radical

刂 dāo

knife (right-side form of 刀)

Knife radical on the right - the right-side form of 刀. To 刮 is to scrape, shave, or strip with a blade - a wind that 刮 strips the leaves off trees. The radical is exact. Same radical heads 刮 with 切 cut, 划 stroke, 刷 brush, 剪 scissors - the blade-action family.

phonetic

舌 shé

tongue (here phonetic)

Left side 舌 supplies the sound: shé to guā with substantial Old Chinese drift through the *kw-/sy- onset alternation. Faint semantic flavor: a 舌 (tongue) scrapes against the inside of the mouth, fitting 刮's scraping-clean motion. Same phonetic also gives 话 huà (speech) and 活 huó (alive).