处 (chù) · place; locality; spot

Meanings

1 place; locality; spot
2 part; aspect; point
3 office; department; bureau
4 classifier for locations

Characters

处

chù

place; locality; spot

Examples

HSK 1

到处都是人。

Dàochù dōu shì rén.

There are people everywhere.

HSK 2

每个人都有自己的长处。

Měi gè rén dōu yǒu zìjǐ de chángchù.

Everyone has their own strengths.

HSK 6

他是人事处的处长。

Tā shì rénshìchù de chùzhǎng.

He is the director of the HR department.

Tips

usage

chù covers three noun senses: physical place (到处, 处所), abstract aspect/point (长处, 用处), and bureaucratic office (办公处, 处长 = a department head). The third sense is why government and corporate signs are full of 处.

Components

radical

夂 zhǐ

walk slowly; step

Top-left indexing radical 夂 - a foot stepping down, files 处 under "slow step." The original 處 had 虎 (tiger) above 凡 (vessel) - a tiger settled in its place. The chù reading freezes that image as a noun: the spot where the resting happens, the place itself.

semantic

卜 bǔ

divine; mark

Bottom-right 卜 - two strokes that anchor the location, like a marker pin on a map. Where the verb reading chǔ emphasises the motion of settling, chù freezes the same graph as a fixed point: a place, an aspect, an office. Same shape, different grammatical weight.