剃 (tì): to shave, shave, to weed

剃 (tì) is a Chinese character meaning “to shave.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 弟 (phonetic) and 刂 (semantic). It ranks #2868 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 剃 knife. Its radical form 刂 (knife) appears in many related characters such as 分 (fēn, to divide), 别 (bié, to leave), 到 (dào, to reach).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 刂 knife9 strokesFrequency #2868弟 phonetic刂 semantic

Definitions

  1. to shave
  2. shave
  3. to weed

Etymology & Origin

剃

pictophoneticknife

Decomposition: ⿰弟刂 (layout: left-right)

Components:弟phonetic刂semantic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
剃刀tì dāorazor
剃须刀tì xū dāoshaver
剃头tì tóuto have one's head shaved
剃度tì dùto take the tonsure
剃头挑子一头热tì tóu tiāo zi yī tóu rèlit. only one end of the barber's pole is hot (idiom)
剃光头tì guāng tóuto shave the whole head clean
剃发令tì fà lìngthe Qing order to all men to shave their heads but keep a queue, first ordered in 1646
鬼剃头guǐ tì tóuspot baldness (alopecia areata)
奥卡姆剃刀ào kǎ mǔ tì dāoOccam's razor
剃发留辫tì fà liú biànto shave the head but keep the queue
剃须膏tì xū gāoshaving cream
11
Total compounds
82
As first character
0
As last character
18
As middle character

剃 appears in 11 compound words: 82 as the first character, 0 as the last, and 18 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 剃 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

刀dāo
0.5954,974 co-occurrences
辫biàn
0.46666 co-occurrences
头tóu
0.4381,698 co-occurrences
掉diào
0.438774 co-occurrences
须xū
0.430672 co-occurrences
僧sēng
0.420456 co-occurrences
毛máo
0.404918 co-occurrences
光guāng
0.4022,376 co-occurrences
匠jiàng
0.388180 co-occurrences
勺sháo
0.37430 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

剃字虽然难写，但意思很有趣。

tì zì suī rán nán xiě , dàn yì sī hěn yǒu qù .

The character "shave" is difficult to write, but its meaning is quite interesting.

Tatoeba

他一如往常，没有剃胡子就上班去了。

Tā yīrúwǎngcháng, méiyǒu tì húzi jiù shàngbān qù le.

As is often the case with him, he went to the office without shaving.

Tatoeba

我已经决定把我的头发剃了。

Wǒ yǐjīng juédìng bǎ wǒ de tóufa tì le.

I've decided to shave my head.

Tatoeba

剃须刀发出了嗡嗡的响声。

Tìxūdāo fāchū le wēngwēng de xiǎngshēng.

The razor made a buzzing sound.

Tatoeba

我本该在买下这个电动剃须刀之前试一下的。

Wǒ běn gāi zài mǎi xià zhège diàndòng tìxūdāo zhīqián shì yīxià de.

I should have tried out this electric shaver before buying it.

Character Family

刂 Radical Family — Characters sharing the knife radical

剥bāo创chuàng刺cì副fù刚gāng割gē刮guā剂jì剑jiàn剧jù

Related Characters

分fēn别bié到dào前qián划huá刚gāng利lì刻kè刀dāo切qiē

Homophones — Characters pronounced tì

梯tī涕tì剔tī踢tī提tí题tí体tǐ屉tì惕tì

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 剃 (tì) mean in Chinese?
剃 (tì) primarily means "to shave." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2868 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 剃 and 递?
剃 (tì) and 递 (dì) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 刂 vs 辶 (same 弟 component).
How many strokes does 剃 have?
剃 is written with 9 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 剃?
The radical associated with 剃 is 刂 (knife). This radical appears in many characters related to knife.
What are the components of 剃?
剃 is composed of: 弟 (phonetic), 刂 (semantic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰弟刂 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 剃?
Common words with 剃 include: 剃刀 (tì dāo, "razor"); 剃须刀 (tì xū dāo, "shaver"); 剃头 (tì tóu, "to have one's head shaved"); 剃度 (tì dù, "to take the tonsure"); 剃头挑子一头热 (tì tóu tiāo zi yī tóu rè, "lit. only one end of the barber's pole is hot (idiom)"). There are over 11 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 剃 (tì)?
Several characters share the pronunciation tì: 梯 (ladder, stairs), 涕 (tears), 剔 (to scrape the meat from bones), 踢 (to kick), and 5 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 剃 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 剃 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.