What 搽 means
It means applying or spreading a substance over a surface.
In Mandarin, 搽粉 means putting on face powder and 搽藥 means applying medicine or ointment. Cantonese uses it for lipstick and sunscreen; Hakka Chinese references also record the apply-or-spread sense.
The Southern Song (1127–1279) play 張協狀元 uses 搽灰抹土 for smearing ash and dirt as comic stage performance.
How did 搽 get this form?
It joins an apply sense, a hand marker, and a sound component.
One account traces it from the older apply-or-smear verb 塗 (simplified 涂): 茶 was borrowed for its sound, not its meaning, then 扌 was added to mark the hand action. A dictionary from the Liao period, 龍龕手鑑, already lists 搽.
Fonts may shape its strokes differently. If the active font lacks the character, it may appear as a box; that signals missing font support, not a different character.
Neutral and practical in Chinese; the object tells you what is being applied.
茶 means tea; 搽 is the hand-action verb for applying a substance.
Who writes 搽
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What it means when someone sends it to you
4 readingsPut on face powder; this is the cosmetic use.
Don't confuse it with
2
Related characters
2
Combination ideas
3Questions people ask
1Why does 搽 show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
More like this
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How to type or find 搽
- Search it as
- 搽粉 · 搽藥 · 搽唇膏 · 搽太陽油 · cha2 · caa4 · 搽 vs 茶 · apply or spread in Chinese
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
搽\643DCodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.