zhě
noun #18,900

Meanings

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

Examples

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

Tips

usage
appears in 褶子 (zhě zi, pleat/crease) and 褶皱 (zhězhòu, 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, shirt. Here it marks the character as a feature of cloth: the gathered folds and pleats sewn into clothing for shape.
phonetic
to practice; repeat (here phonetic)
Right (traditional, 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