to rub; to scratch

to wipe; to polish; to apply (lipstick, lotion etc); to brush (past); to shred (a vegetable etc)

hand (扌) + sound cā (察) = to rub or wipe

The hand radical grounds the meaning in physical touch and friction. 察 contributes the sound cā and carries no semantic weight here.

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To inspectPhonetic
HandSemantic

她用毛巾了擦脸。

tā yòng máo jīn cā le cā liǎn。

She wiped her face with a towel.

桌子之前,先把上面的东西拿开。

nǐ cā zhuō zi zhī qián,xiān bǎ shàng miàn de dōng xi ná kāi。

Before you wipe the table, first move the things on top of it away.

Words with 擦

擦丝

cā sī

to grate (cheese, carrots etc); to shred

龈擦音

yín cā yīn

alveolar fricative (linguistics)

刮擦

guā cā

to scrape

可擦写

kě cā xiě

erasable

可擦除可编程只读存储器

kě cā chú kě biān chéng zhǐ dú cún chǔ qì

EPROM (erasable programmable read-only memory)

板擦

bǎn cā

blackboard or whiteboard eraser

喉擦音

hóu cā yīn

guttural fricative

板擦儿

bǎn cā r

blackboard or whiteboard eraser

塞擦音

sè cā yīn

affricate (phonetics)

打擦边球

dǎ cā biān qiú

to bend the rules

挨擦

āi cā

to press against

挨肩擦背

āi jiān cā bèi

(idiom) to be crowded together

More characters with 扌