zhě
noun #18,900

Meanings

  1. 1 pleat
  2. 2 crease
  3. 3 fold (in fabric or skin)
  4. 4 wrinkle

Examples

HSK 3
Tā de qúnzi shàng yǒu hěnduō zhě.
Her skirt has many pleats.
HSK 7-9
Bǎ yīfu tàng píng, bùyào liú zhězi.
Iron the clothes flat - don't leave creases.

Tips

usage
appears in 褶子 (pleat, crease) and 褶皱 (wrinkle, geological fold). The reading xí exists but is archaic, referring to court dress.

Components

radical
clothing (radical form)
Left clothing radical (the side form of ) - the indexing radical. Pictures a robe with collar and crossed front. Anchors firmly in the garment family with sleeve, trousers, skirt. Here it marks the character as a feature of cloth: the gathered folds and pleats sewn into clothing for shape.
phonetic
to practice; repeat
Right (the traditional form, in simplified) supplies the sound, drifting from xí to zhě along the x-/zh- shift series. The 'repeat, practice' sense lends a faint flavour: pleats are folds repeated again and again along a garment edge. retains the unsimplified even in mainland orthography, an orthographic exception.

Stroke Order

zhě