拭 (shì): to wipe

Meanings

1 to wipe
2 to clean by wiping

Characters

拭

shì

to wipe; to clean

Examples

她拭去眼角的泪水。

Tā shì qù yǎnjiǎo de lèishuǐ.

She wiped away the tears from the corner of her eye.

他拭目以待，期待好消息。

Tā shìmùyǐdài, qīdài hǎo xiāoxi.

He waited eagerly, eyes wide with anticipation.

Tips

register

拭 is a literary/classical character rarely used alone in modern speech. It appears in the idiom 拭目以待 (shì mù yǐ dài) — to wipe one's eyes and wait, meaning to wait and see with keen interest.

Components

radical

扌 shǒu

hand (left-side radical form of 手)

Left hand radical — three-stroke side-form of 手. The indexing radical: wiping is a manual action, so 拭 sits in the vast hand-verb family with 擦 wipe, 抹 smear, 揉 rub, 拂 brush. Pretty much any verb you do with your fingers picks up this radical.

phonetic

式 shì

pattern; ritual form

Right 式 supplies the sound shì with no shift — a clean phonetic. 式 originally referred to ritual procedures, and the careful, measured nature of ceremonial wiping (像在拭擦祭器) lends a faint semantic flavour: 拭 isn't a careless swipe but a deliberate cleaning, as in 拭目以待 'wipe one's eyes to await.'