慑 (shè): Taiwan pr., (bound form) to fear, to be cowed, (bound form) to frighten, to intimidate

慑 (shè) is a Chinese character meaning “taiwan pr..” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 忄 (semantic) and 聂 (phonetic). It ranks #2730 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 慑 heart. Its radical form 忄 (heart) appears in many related characters such as 忙 (máng, busy), 快 (kuài, fast, happy), 怎 (zěn, how).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 忄 heart13 strokesFrequency #2730忄 semantic聂 phonetic

Definitions

  1. Taiwan pr.
  2. (bound form) to fear
  3. to be cowed
  4. (bound form) to frighten
  5. to intimidate

Etymology & Origin

慑

pictophoneticheart

Decomposition: ⿰忄聂 (layout: left-right)

Components:忄semantic聂phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
震慑zhèn shèto awe
威慑wēi shèto deter
慑服shè fúto overawe
核威慑hé wēi shènuclear deterrence
威慑力量wēi shè lì liangdeterrent force
核威慑力量hé wēi shè lì liangnuclear deterrent
核威慑政策hé wēi shè zhèng cèpolicy of nuclear intimidation
慑人shè rénintimidating
8
Total compounds
25
As first character
38
As last character
38
As middle character

慑 appears in 8 compound words: 25 as the first character, 38 as the last, and 38 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 慑 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

震zhèn
0.5531,914 co-occurrences
威wēi
0.5484,140 co-occurrences
衅xìn
0.42836 co-occurrences
核hé
0.411600 co-occurrences
敌dí
0.392198 co-occurrences
蛮mán
0.37336 co-occurrences
略lüè
0.363288 co-occurrences
逻luó
0.36360 co-occurrences
力lì
0.3601,104 co-occurrences
敢gǎn
0.32054 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

看到孩子的进步，父母慑中十分欣慰。

kàn dào hái zǐ de jìn bù , fù mǔ shè zhōng shí fēn xīn wèi .

Seeing their child's progress, the parents were deeply gratified.

LtnMar 2026

美F-35A战机部署日本三泽基地!威慑中、俄、北韩

měi F 3 5 A zhàn jī bù shǔ rì běn sān zé jī dì ! wēi shè zhōng , é , běi hán

東方日報Feb 2026

美日磋商延伸威慑 聚焦中国增强核战力

měi rì cuō shāng yán shēn wēi shè jù jiāo zhōng guó zēng qiáng hé zhàn lì

U.S.-Japan negotiations extend deterrence and focus on China's enhancement of nuclear capabilities

Character Family

忄 Radical Family — Characters sharing the heart radical

怖bù惭cán惨cǎn憧chōng悴cuì惮dàn悼dào惦diàn懂dǒng惰duò

Related Characters

忙máng快kuài怎zěn息xī您nín慢màn必bì忽hū态tài怕pà

Homophones — Characters pronounced shè

摄shè奢shē蛇shé舍shě设shè社shè射shè涉shè拾shè

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 慑 (shè) mean in Chinese?
慑 (shè) primarily means "taiwan pr.." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2730 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 慑 have?
慑 is written with 13 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 慑?
The radical associated with 慑 is 忄 (heart). This radical appears in many characters related to heart.
What are the components of 慑?
慑 is composed of: 忄 (semantic), 聂 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰忄聂 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 慑?
Common words with 慑 include: 震慑 (zhèn shè, "to awe"); 威慑 (wēi shè, "to deter"); 慑服 (shè fú, "to overawe"); 核威慑 (hé wēi shè, "nuclear deterrence"); 威慑力量 (wēi shè lì liang, "deterrent force"). There are over 8 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 慑 (shè)?
Several characters share the pronunciation shè: 摄 ((bound form) to take in), 奢 (extravagant), 蛇 (snake), 舍 (to give up), and 5 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 慑 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 慑 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

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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.