搁 (gē): to place, to put aside, to shelve

搁 (gē) is a Chinese character meaning “to place.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 扌 (semantic) and 阁 (phonetic). It ranks #2310 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 搁 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 place
  2. to put aside
  3. to shelve

Etymology & Origin

搁

pictophonetichand

Decomposition: ⿰扌阁 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
耽搁verbdān geto delay
搁置verbgē zhìto put
搁浅verbgē qiǎnto run aground
搁脚板gē jiǎo bǎnfootrest
担搁dān gevariant of 耽擱|耽搁
搁板gē bǎnshelf
搁笔verbgē bǐto put down the brush
延搁verbyán gēto delay
暂搁zàn gēto put aside temporarily
9
Total compounds
56
As first character
44
As last character
0
As middle character

搁 appears in 9 compound words: 56 as the first character, 44 as the last, and 0 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 搁 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

浅qiǎn
0.7392,291 co-occurrences
耽dān
0.600219 co-occurrences
置zhì
0.5043,554 co-occurrences
滩tān
0.488153 co-occurrences
暂zàn
0.475364 co-occurrences
划huá
0.415538 co-occurrences
礁jiāo
0.39970 co-occurrences
鲸jīng
0.38810 co-occurrences
被bèi
0.3701,392 co-occurrences
船chuán
0.365241 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他搁了一个电话,约朋友晚上一起吃饭。

tā gē le yī gě diàn huà , yāo péng yǒu wǎn shǎng yī qǐ chī fàn .

He made a phone call to arrange dinner with a friend that evening.

Ign中国Mar 2026

《死亡搁浅2:冥滩之上》角色预告

sǐ wáng gē qiǎn 2 : 冥 tān zhī shàng jiǎo sè yù gào

"Death Stranding 2: On the Shores of the Underworld" Character Trailer

Ign中国Mar 2026

PC版《死亡搁浅2:冥滩之上》发售预告

P C bǎn sǐ wáng gē qiǎn 2 : 冥 tān zhī shàng fā shòu yù gào

PC Version of "Death Stranding 2: On the Shores of the Underworld" Launch Trailer

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

避免惹火习近平让“川习会”告吹 川普政府搁置130亿美元对台军售

bì miǎn rě huǒ xí jìn píng ràng chuān xí huì gào chuī chuān pǔ zhèng fǔ gē zhì 1 3 0 yì měi yuán duì tái jūn shòu

To avoid anger, Xi Jinping let the "Sichuan-Xi meeting" fail The Trump administration shelved $13 billion in arms sales to Taiwan

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

小虎鲸屏东搁浅4死 7只获救野放

xiǎo hǔ jīng bǐng dōng gē qiǎn 4 sǐ 7 zhī huò jiù yě fàng

Baby killer whales ran aground in Pingtung, 4 died, and 7 were rescued and released into the wild

東方日報Feb 2026

民主党批特朗普搁置对华禁令 危及美国安全

mín zhǔ dǎng pī tè lǎng pǔ gē zhì duì huá jīn lìng wēi jí měi guó ān quán

Democrats criticized Trump for shelving the ban on China, endangering US security

Tatoeba

我被交通堵塞耽搁了。

Wǒ bèi jiāotōngdǔsè dānge le.

I was delayed by a traffic jam.

Tatoeba

火车因大雪被耽搁了。

Huǒchē yīn dàxuě bèi dānge le.

The train was delayed because of heavy snowfall.

Tatoeba

我们不得不把游戏搁到下周日了。

Wǒmen bùdébù bǎ yóuxì gē dào xià Zhōurì le.

We have to put off the game till next Sunday.

Tatoeba

一条受伤的鲸鱼在海滩边搁浅了。

Yī tiáo shòushāng de jīngyú zài hǎitān biān gēqiǎn le.

A wounded whale washed up on the beach.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 扌 (hand) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced gē

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 搁 (gē) mean in Chinese?
搁 (gē) primarily means "to place." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2310 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 搁 have?
搁 is written with 12 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 搁?
The radical associated with 搁 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 搁?
搁 is composed of: 扌 (semantic), 阁 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌阁 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 搁?
Common words with 搁 include: 耽搁 (dān ge, "to delay"); 搁置 (gē zhì, "to put"); 搁浅 (gē qiǎn, "to run aground"); 搁脚板 (gē jiǎo bǎn, "footrest"); 担搁 (dān ge, "variant of 耽擱|耽搁"). There are over 9 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 搁 (gē)?
Several characters share the pronunciation gē: 个 ((classifier used before a noun that has no specific classifier)), 各 (each), 格 (pattern, standard), 哥 (elder brother), and 4 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 搁 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 搁 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 搁 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.