jié
verb HSK 7-9 #6,660

Meanings

  1. 1 to cut off
  2. 2 to stop
  3. 3 section

Examples

HSK 2
Qǐng jiéqǔ zhè yí duàn.
Please cut out this section.
HSK 6
Jiézhǐ rìqī shì míngtiān.
The deadline is tomorrow.

Tips

usage
Common in 截止 (deadline) and 截取 (to cut/extract).

Components

radical
dagger-axe; halberd
Halberd radical wrapping the right side - the indexing semantic. is a long-handled blade. Across the bird sits the cutting weapon, completing the picture: a creature severed by a strike. The same radical organises (war), (originally a weapon), (accomplish, with a chopping nuance) - all weapon-action characters.
semantic
shí
ten; cross-shape
Top-left cross-shape - the residue of an older graph picturing a stake or weapon-head. In it caps the bird below, giving the visual sense of something pinned or held in place before being cut. Standalone reads as 'ten' but here is purely graphic - one of two pieces that combine into the left half of the character.
phonetic
zhuī
short-tailed bird (here phonetic + semantic)
Short-tailed bird sitting under the cap - supplies a faint zhuī → jié sound link (the rime has drifted considerably) and contributes the image of a creature being pinned and severed by the spear on the right. The bird being cut down is the iconic scene that gives 'cut off, intercept, section, deadline'.

Stroke Order

jié