Trace Panda
■ radical

huà

to row or paddle a boat

How it’s built

Phonosemantic compound. 刂 represents the meaning and 戈 represents the sound. In simplified Chinese 划 is also used to mean "cut; slash; draw line", while in traditional Chinese this meaning is written with a separate character 劃.

刂
meaning

knife — 刂 is a component form of 刀.

戈
sound

dagger-axe — The pronunciation of 划 was similar to 戈 in old Chinese, but they no longer sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes.

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