shuā
verb HSK 4 #3,768

Meanings

  1. 1 to brush; to scrub
  2. 2 to paint; to apply
  3. 3 to swipe (a card); to scroll (on a phone)

Examples

HSK 3
Nǐ shuākǎ háishi fù xiànjīn?
Will you swipe your card or pay cash?
HSK 3
Qiáng xūyào chóngxīn shuā yí biàn.
The wall needs to be painted again.
HSK 3
Bié zǒngshì shuā shǒujī le!
Stop scrolling on your phone!

Tips

culture
手机 (to scroll your phone) and 视频 (to scroll short videos) are modern slang. 刷卡 (swipe a card) covers both bank cards and transit cards.
register
A rare reading shuà means 'to select / pick out' and survives in dialectal ('pale, ashen'). Standard everyday use is shuā throughout.

Components

radical
dāo
knife; blade (radical)
Right radical is the side form of , the indexing radical for . Scrubbing involves no real blade; the knife stands for any sharp, repetitive scraping against a surface. The same radical drives , , , .
semantic
shī
body; reclining figure (semantic)
Top-left is a person leaning forward, here a body bent over a task: scrubbing, sweeping, brushing. With the cloth underneath, the picture is someone hunched over with a wiping rag in hand.
semantic
jīn
cloth; rag (semantic)
Lower-left is a hanging cloth or rag, the cleaning tool itself. Tucked under the body it pictures the wipe-cloth being applied. The same component is the brushy element in and .

Stroke Order

shuā