提 (tí): to carry (hanging from the hand)

Meanings

1 to carry (hanging from the hand)
2 to lift; to raise
3 to put forward; to mention
4 to raise (an issue)

Characters

提

tí

lift; raise; mention; carry

Examples

他提了一个问题。

Tā tí le yí gè wèntí.

He raised a question.

不要再提这件事了。

Bú yào zài tí zhè jiàn shì le.

Don't bring this up again.

她提着一个袋子。

Tā tí zhe yí gè dàizi.

She's carrying a bag.

Tips

usage

Highly productive: 提问 (ask), 提出 (put forward), 提高 (raise), 提到 (mention), 提前 (in advance), 提醒 (remind).

grammar

As 'carry', 提 means carrying by a handle (bag, bucket, lantern). For arms use 抱; on the back use 背.

register

Polyphone: read tí for everything except 提防 (guard against) and 提溜 (carry by handle, colloquial), which take dī.

Components

radical

扌 shǒu

hand (radical form)

Left hand radical — the indexing semantic. Lifting and carrying are hand actions, anchoring 提 alongside 拿 (take), 抓 (grab), 抬 (raise). The metaphorical 'bring up (a topic)' extends physical lifting into discourse, but the radical pins the verb to a manual act first.

phonetic

是 shì

to be (here phonetic)

Right 是 supplies the sound — shì → tí, with the dental t/sh alternation common across this phonetic family (题, 堤, 匙). Pure phonetic loan; the copula meaning doesn't carry. The series is unusually large in modern Mandarin.