捋 (lǚ) · to stroke; to smooth with the fingers (e.g. a beard,…

Meanings

1 to stroke; to smooth with the fingers (e.g. a beard, a thread)
2 to pluck off with the fingers (alternate reading luō)
3 to sort out; to think through

Characters

捋

lǚ

to stroke; to smooth with the fingers

Examples

HSK 6

老先生捋着胡子，慢慢地说。

Lǎoxiānsheng lǚ zhe húzi, mànman de shuō.

The old gentleman stroked his beard and spoke slowly.

HSK 6

我先捋一下思路。

Wǒ xiān lǚ yíxià sīlù.

Let me first sort out my train of thought.

HSK 7-9

她捋起袖子准备下厨。

Tā lǚ qǐ xiùzi zhǔnbèi xiàchú.

She rolled up her sleeves to start cooking.

Tips

mistakes

捋 has two readings with two distinct meanings: lǚ = 'to stroke / smooth along its length' (stroke a beard, roll up sleeves, sort out thoughts); luō = 'to grab and pull along the length' (strip leaves off a branch, pluck a fistful of seeds). Same gesture mostly, but luō implies harvesting force. Modern speech leans on lǚ; luō survives mainly in dialect and set phrases.

memory

Picture 扌 (hand) + 寽 - and 寽 itself is an oracle-bone drawing of fingers picking something off. The whole character is literally 'hand-picking-fingers': run your fingers down a length of something.

Components

radical

扌 shǒu

hand (radical form of 手)

Side-hand radical on the left - compressed left-side form of 手. Indexes 捋 in the manual-action family with 打 to hit, 拉 to pull, 抓 to grab, 摸 to feel. 捋 means to stroke or smooth something between thumb and fingers, so the hand carries the full semantic weight.

phonetic

寽 lǚ

to gather; to pick (archaic)

Right side 寽 supplies the sound lǚ exactly - and also a faint semantic echo, since 寽 itself depicts a hand picking something up. The handed-up imagery doubles down on the 扌 radical: with two hands working, 捋 captures the sliding pinch used to strip leaves from a stem.