糟 (zāo): dregs; sediment (of wine)

Meanings

1 dregs; sediment (of wine)
2 rotten; messy; in a terrible state
3 terrible; awful; too bad

Characters

糟

zao

messy; rotten; dregs

Examples

HSK 1

今天的天气真糟。

Jīntiān de tiānqì zhēn zāo.

Today's weather is really terrible.

HSK 5

事情被他搞糟了。

Shìqíng bèi tā gǎo zāo le.

He messed things up.

HSK 7-9

糟了！我忘带钥匙了。

Zāo le! Wǒ wàng dài yàoshi le.

Oh no! I forgot to bring my keys.

Tips

usage

糟 as an exclamation (糟了！) means "Oh no!" or "Shoot!" - used when something goes wrong. 糟蹋 means "to waste/ruin/spoil."

memory

The character has 米 (rice) on the left - dregs from fermenting rice into wine. Something that's gone bad, like spoiled leftovers.

Components

radical

米 mǐ

rice; grain

Left rice radical - the indexing semantic. The original sense of 糟 was the leftover grain dregs at the bottom of the wine vat after fermentation; that fits the rice family naturally. From physical dregs the meaning extended to "mess, ruined state" (糟糕 awful).

phonetic

曹 cáo

company; group

Right 曹 supplies the sound - cáo shifted to zāo, a regular initial change in this rime group. Same phonetic family: 槽 (cáo, trough), 漕 (cáo, water-transport), 遭 (zāo, to encounter). The shared cluster makes the sound easy to remember once you know any one member.