撇 (piě) · left-falling stroke in Chinese characters (丿)

Meanings

1 left-falling stroke in Chinese characters (丿)
2 to fling sideways (a stone, a stick)
3 to twist (one's lips) in disdain

Characters

撇

piě

left-falling stroke; to fling sideways

Examples

HSK 3

她撇了撇嘴，什么也没说。

Tā piě le piě zuǐ, shénme yě méi shuō.

She curled her lip and said nothing.

HSK 6

先写一撇，再写一横。

Xiān xiě yì piě, zài xiě yì héng.

First write the left-falling stroke, then the horizontal stroke.

HSK 7-9

"人"字有一撇一捺。

" Rén " zì yǒu yì piě yí nà.

The character 人 has a left-falling stroke and a right-falling stroke.

Tips

mistakes

Two readings, two different words. This one is third-tone piě: the left-falling stroke, and the sideways flick of a hand or a lip, as in 撇嘴. First-tone piē is the other word, to cast aside, as in 撇开 and 撇下.

usage

As a stroke name this is the left-falling stroke (丿), one of the basic strokes of Chinese writing, and stroke-order instructions use it constantly. The verb sense is the same gesture made by hand: 撇嘴 is twisting the mouth down in disdain, and skimming a flat stone across water is also 撇.

Components

radical

扌 shǒu

hand (radical form of 手)

Left hand radical - the side-form of 手 used at the left margin. The indexing element. Puts 撇 in the action-of-the-hand family with 投 (toss), 抛 (throw), 拨 (push aside), 挥 (wave). The hand carries the gesture: flicking, tossing, or sweeping something to one side.

phonetic

敝 bì

worn out; shabby (here phonetic)

Right 敝 supplies the sound - bì drifting to piě through the labial b/p shift seen across the 敝 phonetic series (蔽, 弊, 撇, 瞥). 敝 itself depicts a cloth being beaten with a stick (巾 + 攵), giving 'tattered, worn.' For 撇 the picture suits: a sharp downward flick of the hand, the calligrapher's piě-stroke that brushes off to the lower left.