verb #4,020

Meanings

  1. 1 to rub
  2. 2 to grind
  3. 3 to touch

Examples

Ànmó kěyǐ hěn hǎo de huǎnjiě píláo.
Getting a massage really helps relieve fatigue.
Liǎng gè biǎomiàn zhījiān de mócā chǎnshēng le rèliàng.
Friction between the two surfaces produced heat.

Tips

memory
(hemp) over (hand): picture rubbing rough hemp fibers between your hands, which is exactly what means, to rub.
register
Almost everything uses the mó reading, including 按摩 (massage) and 摩托车 (motorcycle). One literary word, (to stroke gently), takes a first-tone mā instead.

Components

radical
shǒu
hand
Bottom hand radical in its full standalone form, the indexing radical of . Carries the literal meaning: is rubbing, stroking, massaging, all hand actions. The same radical in its side-form heads most other rubbing and touching verbs (, , ); the full here puts emphasis on the hand itself doing the work.
phonetic
hemp
Top-and-left wrapping supplies the sound (má to mó, a regular vowel shift in the same labial-nasal family). itself shows 广 (shelter) over hemp stalks being processed in a workshop. It carries a faint semantic echo of friction: hemp fibres have to be rubbed and twisted between the hands to make rope. Same phonetic in (grind), (mushroom), (modal particle).

Stroke Order