shuì
verb HSK 1 #425

Meanings

  1. 1 to sleep

Characters

Eye radical on the left - when you sleep, you close your eyes

Examples

HSK 1
Wǒ xiǎng shuì le.
I want to sleep.
HSK 2
Nǐ shuì le duōjiǔ?
How long did you sleep?
HSK 2
Háizi yǐjīng shuìzháo le.
The child has already fallen asleep.

Tips

memory
contains the eye radical on the left - when you sleep, you close your eyes.

Components

radical
eye
Left eye radical, a vertical pictograph of an eye (originally drawn horizontally, then rotated). It supplies the meaning: an action involving the eyes, here their closing. is the eyelids drooping shut - sleep as an eye-event rather than a body-event. The radical anchors the seeing-and-watching family: , , , , , .
semantic
chuí
to droop; hang down
Right means 'to hang down, droop' - drawn as branches drooping from a tree. Combined with the eye on the left, the whole forms a compound ideograph: drooping eyelids, the visible image of falling asleep. is semantic here, not phonetic - chuí does not match shuì, though they are graphically close. Same family: , , .

Stroke Order

shuì