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嚼

jiáo / jué
verb HSK 7-9 #4,826

Meanings

  1. 1 to chew
  2. 2 to munch

Examples

HSK 7-9
吃饭要细嚼慢咽。
Chīfàn yào xì jiáo màn yàn.
When eating, you should chew carefully and swallow slowly.
HSK 7-9
他在嚼口香糖。
Tā zài jiáo kǒuxiāngtáng.
He is chewing gum.

Tips

mistakes
The character 嚼 has two main readings. Everyday speech uses jiáo for the act of chewing (嚼 口香糖, to chew gum). The literary reading jué appears in the formal word 咀嚼 (to masticate; to mull over), which has its own entry. A third reading jiào survives only in the rare 倒嚼 (of cattle: to chew the cud).
memory
The mouth radical 口 sits on the left, which makes sense: chewing is the prototypical thing the mouth does to food.

Components

radical
口 kǒu
mouth
Mouth radical on the left, the indexing radical, marking 嚼 as a mouth action. To 嚼 is to chew, the prototypical thing the mouth does to food. Family: 吃 (eat), 喝 (drink), 咬 (bite), 吞 (swallow). Doing semantic work, not just classifying.
phonetic
爵 jué
ceremonial wine cup; rank (here phonetic)
Right 爵 supplies the sound. The reading jué drifted to jiáo in everyday speech, while the original jué survives in the literary 咀嚼. 爵 itself depicts a three-legged ritual wine vessel; the link to chewing is purely phonetic. 嚼 has no other common 爵 siblings, so it stands alone.

Stroke Order

嚼 jiáo