擦 (cā): to wipe

Meanings

1 to wipe
2 to rub
3 to polish
4 to apply (cream, etc.)

Characters

擦

cā

to wipe; to rub; to polish

Contains the hand radical 扌, as wiping and rubbing are hand actions.

Examples

请擦一下桌子。

Qǐng cā yīxià zhuōzi.

Please wipe the table.

她在擦眼泪。

Tā zài cā yǎnlèi.

She's wiping away tears.

记得擦防晒霜。

Jìde cā fángshàishuāng.

Remember to apply sunscreen.

Tips

usage

擦 has many uses: 擦桌子 (wipe a table), 擦鞋 (polish shoes), 擦药 (apply medicine), 擦黑板 (erase the blackboard).

Components

radical

扌 shǒu

hand

Hand radical on the left — the standing form of 手 with three strokes. It supplies meaning: 擦 is fundamentally a hand-action — wiping, rubbing, scraping, polishing. The radical anchors 擦 in a wide family of hand verbs: 抓 (grab), 拉 (pull), 推 (push), 摸 (touch).

phonetic

察 chá

inspect; examine

察 (chá) supplies the sound, drifting tone to cā. The same phonetic stem feeds 擦 and a few rarer chá/cā compounds. 察 itself is 宀 (roof) over 祭 (offering) — the act of examining a sacrifice — but in 擦 it is essentially sonic; the meaning is delivered by the hand on the left.