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

慑 (shè) is a Chinese character meaning “(bound form) to fear.” 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).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

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

Etymology & Origin

慑

pictophoneticheart

Decomposition: ⿰忄聂 (layout: left-right)

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verbzhèn shèto awe
威慑verbwēi shèto deter
慑服verbshè fúto overawe
核威慑nounhé 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
0.545638 co-occurrences
威wēi
0.5401,380 co-occurrences
衅xìn
0.42212 co-occurrences
核hé
0.405200 co-occurrences
敌dí
0.38666 co-occurrences
蛮mán
0.36812 co-occurrences
略lüè
0.35896 co-occurrences
逻luó
0.35820 co-occurrences
力lì
0.355368 co-occurrences
敢gǎn
0.31518 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.

少数派Aug 2026

等到真要检索时,又被自己攒下的这么多条路震慑,哪条路都走不好。

děng dào zhēn yāo jiǎn suǒ shí , yòu bèi zì jǐ cuán xià de zhè má duō tiáo lù zhèn shè , nǎ tiáo lù dōu zǒu bù hǎo .

But when it actually comes time to make a decision, I’m overwhelmed by all the options I’ve accumulated, and I can’t seem to choose any of them.

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

U.S. F-35A fighter jets deployed to Misawa Air Base in Japan! Deterring China, Russia, and North Korea

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

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 忄 (heart) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced shè

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 慑 (shè) mean in Chinese?
慑 (shè) primarily means "(bound form) to fear." 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), 设 (to set up, to design), 社 ((bound form) society), 射 (to shoot), and 4 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.

Practice writing 慑 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.