折

shé
#1,129 most
frequent character
to snap, to break (a stick, a bone etc)

Character breakdown

Source: Make Me a Hanzi.

折 shows 扌, a hand, and 斤, a wood axe, and first meant cutting a tree in two. In early forms the hand was actually a tree being split. The sense widened to snapping, folding and bending, and even to a discount. Read shé it means to break; read zhē, to turn over.

Drawn as: axe cutting a tree

折 as a component in other characters

sound7 characters
哲誓逝浙蜇踅哳

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