chá
noun #30,765

Meanings

  1. 1 shard, fragment (of glass, porcelain, etc.)
  2. 2 stubble (of beard or hair)
  3. 3 a quarrel; bad blood; grudge

Examples

HSK 5
Xiǎoxīn, dìshàng yǒu bōli chá.
Careful, there are glass shards on the ground.
HSK 5
Tāliǎ zhījiān yǒudiǎn chár, zuìhǎo bié ràng tāmen pèngmiàn.
There's a bit of bad blood between those two; best not let them meet.
HSK 6
Tā xiàba shàng zhǎng chū yī céng húzi chá.
A layer of beard stubble has grown on his chin.

Tips

register
In Beijing speech 碴儿 means 'to pick a fight / nitpick' - literally 'looking for a sharp edge to grab onto'. The image of jagged glass shards underlies the slang meaning of grudges and quarrels.

Components

radical
shí
stone
Stone radical on the left, the indexing radical. means a sharp fragment or shard - broken glass, chipped pottery, beard stubble - all hard, splinter-like things. The radical groups it with brick, to smash, to crush, all hard-material chars.
phonetic
chá
to check; to investigate
Right side supplies the sound - chá straight across with no shift. There is a faint sense of inspecting that fits the imagery of finding a sharp shard. Same phonetic appears in hawthorn and dregs.

Stroke Order

chá