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折

zhé / shé / zhē
verb HSK 4 #4,804

Meanings

  1. 1 to break; to fracture; to snap
  2. 2 to fold; to bend; to crease
  3. 3 discount; rebate (in price)
  4. 4 setback; reverse

Examples

HSK 3
请把纸折成两半。
Qǐng bǎ zhǐ zhéchéng liǎngbàn.
Please fold the paper in half.
HSK 3
这个商品打七折。
Zhège shāngpǐn dǎ qī zhé.
This item is 30 percent off.
HSK 7-9
他把树枝折断了。
Tā bǎ shùzhī zhéduàn le.
He broke the branch in two.

Tips

usage
Shopping shorthand to memorise: 打X折 means you pay X tenths of the original price. 打七折 = pay 70 percent = 30 percent off; 打五折 = half price; 打对折 also means half off. Don't read it the Western way ('seven off').
mistakes
折 has three readings. zhé is the default - fold, break, discount, twist. shé is the colloquial "to snap (with a clean crack)" or "to lose money" (折本). zhē is the kinetic "to flip / toss / mess about" - almost only in 折腾 and 折跟头 (to do a somersault).

Components

radical
扌 shǒu
hand (left-side radical)
Left hand radical - three strokes, the compressed left-side form of 手. Anchors 折 in the verbs-of-the-hand family alongside 打 (hit), 拿 (take), 推 (push), 抓 (grab). Sets the action: a hand doing something to wood - specifically, here, a hand swinging an axe.
semantic
斤 jīn
axe; catty
Right axe component - pictograph of a hafted axe-head (the same 斤 used as a weight unit, 'catty', because axes were once standard weights). Compound ideograph: hand (扌) + axe (斤) = breaking wood with a blade, hence 'to break, snap, fold'. From the snap-an-arrow image came 'discount' (a deduction = a snapped-off piece) and 'setback' (something broken).

Stroke Order

折 zhé