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尜

gá
noun

Meanings

  1. 1 a spinning toy pointed at both ends and fat in the middle (also 尜尜)
  2. 2 shaped like a spindle (pointed at both ends)

Examples

孩子们在胡同里玩尜。
Háizimen zài hútòng lǐ wán gá.
The children are playing with a spinning top in the alley.

Tips

history
Rarely written; it appears mostly doubled as 尜尜 for the old children's toy, and in dialect it stands in for 嘎. It is a self-explaining ideograph: small–big–small, picturing the spindle shape.
memory
Read the stack top to bottom: 小 over 大 over 小 — narrow, wide, narrow: the exact silhouette of the double-pointed spinning toy.

Components

ideograph
小 xiǎo
small (pointed end)
The top 小 draws the tapered upper tip of the toy. It is used here purely for its small, pointed shape, not its word meaning.
ideograph
大 dà
big (bulging middle)
The middle 大 is the fat belly of the spindle, the widest part where it is struck to make it spin and jump.
ideograph
小 xiǎo
small (pointed end)
The bottom 小 mirrors the top, drawing the lower point. Small–big–small stacked is the whole toy — that is all 尜 is.

Stroke Order

尜 gá