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打铁

打鐵
dǎtiě
verb #33,243

Meanings

  1. 1 to forge iron
  2. 2 to do blacksmithing
  3. 3 (basketball slang) to brick a shot - i.e. miss with the ball clanging off the rim

Examples

HSK 3
村口有个老人在打铁。
Cūnkǒu yǒu gè lǎorén zài dǎtiě.
There's an old man forging iron at the entrance to the village.
HSK 4
他今晚一直在打铁，三投零中。
Tā jīnwǎn yìzhí zài dǎtiě, sān tóu líng zhòng.
He's been bricking shots all night, zero for three.
HSK 7-9
趁热打铁，我们赶紧把合同签了。
Chènrè-dǎtiě, wǒmen gǎnjǐn bǎ hétong qiān le.
Strike while the iron is hot - let's hurry and sign the contract.

Tips

culture
The chengyu 趁热打铁 (chèn rè dǎ tiě, 'strike while the iron is hot') is the most common way you'll meet 打铁 in modern Chinese - a direct counterpart to the English idiom. The basketball-slang sense (missing the rim with a metallic 'clang') is recent and informal, common in NBA commentary and gaming chats.
memory
Picture a blacksmith hammering hot iron - 打 (hit) + 铁 (iron). The basketball slang reuses that image: a shot 'hammering' off the rim instead of swishing through the net.

Stroke Order

打 dǎ
铁 tiě