shuàn
verb HSK 7-9 #13,485

Meanings

  1. 1 to rinse; to swish (in water)
  2. 2 to cook by dipping thinly sliced ingredients briefly in boiling water or broth (hot pot style)
  3. 3 to trick; to fool someone

Examples

HSK 1
Nǐ bié shuàn wǒ le!
Stop messing with me!
HSK 5
Bǎ yángròu piàn zài guō lǐ shuàn jǐ miǎo jiù néng chī le.
Just swish the lamb slices in the pot for a few seconds and they're ready to eat.
HSK 7-9
Wǒmen jīnwǎn qù shuàn huǒguō ba.
Let's go have hot pot tonight.

Tips

usage
is the quintessential hot pot verb. 涮羊肉 is Beijing-style instant-boiled mutton. Colloquially, 涮人 means to trick or stand someone up.

Components

radical
shuǐ
water (left-side form)
is left-side water and grounds in the rinse/wash family - the classic image is meat dunked and swished in boiling broth (涮羊肉, hotpot mutton). Water and motion together define the cooking action.
phonetic
shuā
to brush
gives the sound shuā → shuàn (rhyme change and tone shift). There's a faint semantic echo too - is "brush, scrub" and is "rinse, swish" - both rapid back-and-forth cleaning motions. Mostly phonetic though.

Stroke Order

shuàn