剐 (guǎ): to cut flesh from the bone as p…

Meanings

1 to cut flesh from the bone as punishment
2 to scrape

Characters

剐

guǎ

to cut flesh; to scrape

Examples

千刀万剐是古代极刑之一。

Qiāndāowànguǎ shì gǔdài jíxíng zhīyī.

Death by a thousand cuts was one of the most severe punishments in ancient times.

他的腿被铁丝网剐破了。

Tā de tuǐ bèi tiěsīwǎng guǎ pò le.

His leg was scraped and torn by the barbed wire.

Tips

history

剐 most famously appears in 千刀万剐 (death by a thousand cuts), also called 凌迟 (língchí), a historical form of execution involving multiple cuts to the body before death. It was abolished in China in 1905.

Components

radical

刂 dāo

knife (right-side radical form of 刀)

Right knife radical — the standing form of 刀 when on the right. As the indexing radical it carries the literal meaning: 剐 was the imperial death-by-a-thousand-cuts punishment, flesh sliced from bone. Same radical drives 切 to cut, 割 to slash, 刺 to stab, 削 to peel.

phonetic

呙 guō

(here phonetic; bone fragment)

Left 呙 supplies the sound — guō shifting to guǎ via tone change. Originally this slot held 咼, picturing a bone stripped of flesh, so it also adds a faint flavour of scraping bone clean. Same phonetic frames 锅 pot, 蜗 snail, 涡 whirlpool, all sharing the guō reading.