槎

chá
noun

Meanings

  1. 1 a raft of bamboo or wood
  2. 2 to fell or hack trees

Examples

HSK 7-9
Chuánshuō zhōng kěyǐ chéng mù fá zhíshàng yínhé.
The legend says one can ride a wooden raft up to the Milky Way.

Tips

history
槎 is a literary word for a wood-or-bamboo raft (and a verb 'to hack trees'). It is largely replaced by 筏 in modern Chinese and rarely stands alone. It is famous from the poetic image of riding a raft 槎 up to the stars. Built on the wood radical 木.
register
Literary and archaic. 槎 appears in classical poetry, not in everyday speech.

Components

radical
木 mù
tree; wood
The 木 'wood' radical marks 槎 as a wooden raft or an act of cutting wood, and is its indexing radical.
phonetic
差 chā
difference
The 差 element supplies the sound chá; it is purely phonetic in 槎.

Stroke Order

槎 chá