扯 (chě): to pull, to tear, (of cloth, thread etc) to buy

扯 (chě) is a Chinese character meaning “to pull.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 扌 (semantic) and 止 (phonetic). It ranks #2049 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 扯 hand. Its radical form 扌 (hand) appears in many related characters such as 手 (shǒu, hand), 打 (dǎ, hit, make), 找 (zhǎo, to look for).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. to pull
  2. to tear
  3. (of cloth, thread etc) to buy

Etymology & Origin

扯

pictophonetichand

Decomposition: ⿰扌止 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Practice writing 扯 with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
胡扯verbhú chěto chatter
牵扯verbqiān chěto involve
扯淡verbchě dànto talk nonsense
瞎扯verbxiā chěto talk irresponsibly
拉扯verblā cheto drag
扯谎verbchě huǎngto tell a lie
闲扯verbxián chěto chat
拉拉扯扯phraselā lā chě chěto tug at
扯皮verbchě píto wrangle
扯裂chě lièrip
扯后腿verbchě hòu tuǐto be a drag or hindrance on sb
生拉活扯shēng lā huó chěsee 生拉硬拽
东拉西扯phrasedōng lā xī chěto talk about this and that (idiom)
步子太大,容易扯着蛋bù zi tài dà , róng yì chě zhe dànif you take too big a stride, you could easily rip your balls (catchphrase) (line spoken by actor 葛優|葛优 in ...
扯家常chě jiā chángto engage in small talk
45
Total compounds
40
As first character
29
As last character
31
As middle character

扯 appears in 45 compound words: 40 as the first character, 29 as the last, and 31 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Strongest Collocations

Characters that most frequently co-occur with 扯 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

牵qiān
0.543700 co-occurrences
撕sī
0.523240 co-occurrences
瞎xiā
0.45850 co-occurrences
拽zhuài
0.43620 co-occurrences
拉lā
0.4201,834 co-occurrences
歹dǎi
0.40830 co-occurrences
腿tuǐ
0.403120 co-occurrences
掉diào
0.402220 co-occurrences
铃líng
0.37434 co-occurrences
甩shuǎi
0.36718 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (6)

丢轮扯炮diū lún chě pàoHSK 7+

(idiom) flustered; confused

phrase
东拉西扯dōnglāxīchěHSK 7+

to ramble incoherently; to talk about this and that

phrase
胡扯八溜hú chě bā liūHSK 7+

to talk nonsense

phrase
拉拉扯扯lālāchěchěHSK 7+

to pull repeatedly; to drag repeatedly; to hold each other's arms and hands in a lovey-dovey manner

phrase
胡诌八扯hú zhōu bā chěHSK 7+

(idiom) to talk random nonsense; to say whatever comes into one's head

phrase
胡诌乱扯hú zhōu luàn chěHSK 7+

see 胡謅八扯|胡诌八扯

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他扯起袖子,开始认真地打扫房间。

tā chě qǐ xiù zǐ , kāi shǐ rèn zhēn dì dǎ sǎo fáng jiān .

He rolled up his sleeves and began cleaning the room thoroughly.

三立新聞網Mar 2026

王彩桦整形内幕曝光 李进良扯出前妻小祯

wáng cǎi 桦 zhěng xíng nèi mù pù guāng lǐ jìn liáng chě chū qián qī xiǎo 祯

Wang Caihua's Plastic Surgery Scandal Exposed; Li Jinliang Dragged His Ex-Wife Xiao Zhen Into It

三立新聞網Mar 2026

扯断关公手偷金牌!专家警告:你惨了

chě duàn guān gōng shǒu tōu jīn pái ! zhuān jiā jǐng gào : nǐ cǎn le

"Snatch the gold medal by pulling off Guan Yu's hand!" Experts warn: You're in big trouble

UdnnewsindexMar 2026

扯爆!洋芋片打开只有“1片”网轰离谱 业者...

chě bào ! yáng 芋 piàn dǎ kāi zhī yǒu 1 piàn wǎng hōng lí pǔ yè zhě . . .

Unbelievable! Potato chip bag contains just "one chip"—netizens slam it as outrageous; the company...

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

牵扯艾普斯坦引发学界风暴 哈佛切割前校长桑默...

qiān chě ài pǔ sī tǎn yǐn fā xué jiè fēng bào hā fó qiē gē qián jiào cháng sāng mò . . .

Involving Epstein caused a storm in the academic world, Harvard cut former president Somer...

三立新聞網Feb 2026

73岁阿公“宫内早孕”?中国医院报告扯

7 3 suì ā gōng gōng nèi zǎo yùn ? zhōng guó yī yuàn bào gào chě

73-year-old grandfather "intrauterine early pregnancy"? Chinese hospital report pulls

Tatoeba

别再扯你姐姐的头发了!

Bié zài chě nǐ jiějie de tóufa le!

Stop pulling your sister's hair.

Tatoeba

我不想被牵扯到这件事里。

Wǒ bù xiǎng bèi qiānchě dào zhè jiàn shì lǐ.

I don't want to be involved in that matter.

Tatoeba

你说的东西是胡扯。

Nǐ shuō de dōngxi shì húchě.

What you said is baloney.

Tatoeba

她在树枝上把自己的裙子扯烂了。

Tā zài shùzhī shàng bǎ zìjǐ de qúnzi chě làn le.

She ripped her dress on a branch.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 扌 (hand) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced chě

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 扯 (chě) mean in Chinese?
扯 (chě) primarily means "to pull." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2049 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 扯 and 推?
扯 (chě) and 推 (tuī) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 扯 (pull) vs 推 (push).
How many strokes does 扯 have?
扯 is written with 7 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 扯?
The radical associated with 扯 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 扯?
扯 is composed of: 扌 (semantic), 止 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌止 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 扯?
Common words with 扯 include: 胡扯 (hú chě, "to chatter"); 牵扯 (qiān chě, "to involve"); 扯淡 (chě dàn, "to talk nonsense"); 瞎扯 (xiā chě, "to talk irresponsibly"); 拉扯 (lā che, "to drag"). There are over 45 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 扯 (chě)?
Several characters share the pronunciation chě: 车 (vehicle), 彻 (thorough), 撤 (to remove). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 扯 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 扯 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 扯 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear spoken pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.