着 (zhuó) · to wear (clothing)

Meanings

1 to wear (clothing)
2 to apply; to put on (color, ink, effort)
3 to come into contact; to touch; to attach to
4 whereabouts; a settled outcome

Characters

着

zhuó

to wear (clothing)

Examples

HSK 3

我们着手解决这个问题。

Wǒmen zhuó shǒu jiějué zhège wèntí.

We're getting started on this problem.

HSK 5

他穿着整齐。

Tā chuān zhuó zhěngqí.

His attire is neat.

HSK 7-9

飞机安全着陆了。

Fēijī ānquán zhuó lù le.

The plane landed safely.

Tips

usage

zhuó (rising tone) is the literary/written reading - it shows up mostly in compounds, rarely as a standalone word. Productive families: clothing-and-appearance (穿着, 着装, 衣着), contact-and-attachment (附着, 着陆, 着床), focus-and-emphasis (着重, 着眼, 着手), and settled-outcome (着落).

mistakes

Easy slip: 穿着 'wearing (right now)' uses toneless zhe (aspect particle); 穿着 'attire (noun)' uses zhuó. Same characters, different reading, different word. Pick by whether you mean the ongoing action or the noun for clothing.

Components

radical

目 mù

eye

The eye radical (Kangxi 109) is the indexing component. On the zhuó reading the original sense - 'fixing one's eye on, attaching to' - drove the modern meanings: putting clothing onto the body, applying ink to paper, landing onto the ground, focusing attention on a topic. The same character 着 also reads 着 (aspect particle), 着 ('to catch') and 着 ('a chess move').

semantic

羊 yáng

sheep (graphic only)

Looks like 羊 but is the cursive residue of 艹 over 者 from the original 著. Graphic placeholder only, no meaning contribution.