舌

shé
#1,955 most
frequent character
tongue

Character breakdown

Source: Make Me a Hanzi.

舌 shé has 口 mouth as a picture part; 千 is empty and once drew a tongue with spit. It started as a picture of the tongue. It grew to mean things the tongue does, like talking and tasting, and tongue-like things such as flames.

Drawn as: tongue and spit

舌 as a component in other characters

meaning3 characters
甜舔舐
sound11 characters
话活适括刮恬憩蛞鸹栝筈
picture1 character
聒
empty3 characters
敌乱辞

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Same Characters, Different Readings

舌jī
used in 喇舌[la3 ji1] to transcribe the Taiwanese word for "tongue"

Homophones

折shé
to snap, to break (a stick, a bone etc)

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