noun HSK 5 #1,444

Meanings

  1. 1 drama; play; game
  2. 2 to play; to joke

Examples

Zhèbù xì hěn hǎokàn.
This play/drama is great.
Jīngjù shì Zhōngguó de guócuì.
Peking opera is a national treasure of China.
Bié gēn wǒ kāiwánxiào.
Don't joke with me.

Tips

usage
is used in: 游戏 (game), 戏剧 (drama / theater), 京戏/京剧 (Peking opera), 看戏 (to watch a show), 马戏 (circus). In gaming, 游戏 is the standard word for video games in Chinese.

Components

radical
dagger-axe
on the right - the indexing radical, picturing a hooked dagger-axe with a horizontal blade. Originally referred to a theatrical mock-battle with weapons, hence the spear. Modern covers theater, opera, drama and play (戏剧, 京戏, 游戏) - all still descended from that armed performance.
semantic
yòu
again; right hand
on the left - pictures a right hand and is used as the simplified swap-in for the much busier in traditional . It carries no real semantic weight here beyond marking the hand that wields the spear; learn it as a stroke-economy reform symbol. Same simplification trick gives (trad ), , .

Stroke Order