痧

shā
noun #74,916

Meanings

  1. 1 (TCM) acute illness such as cholera, sunstroke, or heatstroke
  2. 2 rash; measles (in 痧子)

Examples

HSK 5
Nǎinai chángyòng guāshā de fāngfǎ zhìbìng.
Grandma often treats illness using the gua sha method.
HSK 7-9
Tā zài lùshàng zhòng le shǔ, fā le shā.
He got heatstroke on the road and came down with sha.

Tips

culture
痧 is a traditional Chinese medicine concept covering a cluster of acute conditions (heatstroke, cholera-like illness, food poisoning). The treatment 刮痧 ('scraping sha') is the well-known practice of scraping the skin with a smooth tool to draw out 'bad qi'.
memory
The radical 疒 on the left always signals an illness. The right side 沙 gives the sound.

Components

radical
疒 nè
sickness; illness (radical)
Outer sickness radical, a stylized bed-on-its-side with a person leaning against it, picturing illness. The indexing radical, files 痧 in the medical family: 病 illness, 痛 pain, 疹 rash, 疾 disease, 疫 epidemic. Marks 痧 as a TCM disease category, the cluster of acute summer illnesses (heatstroke, cholera-like spasms) traditionally treated by scraping 刮痧.
phonetic
沙 shā
sand
Inner 沙 supplies the sound, shā exactly, no shift. Pure phonetic role; the 'sand' meaning contributes nothing semantically. Same phonetic family: 砂 sand-stone, 莎 sedge, 鲨 shark. The medical name 痧 likely picks up the phonetic via shared metaphor with the gritty, fine red spots (the rash sense in 痧子) but that semantic link is loose at best.

Stroke Order

痧 shā