Kilo Lingo

(jiě) - to untie, to solve; to understand in Mandarin

jiě

Traditional: 解

Line drawing of 解
Coloured illustration of 解
#5027 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

to untie, to solve; to understand

Word origin

An ideographic character showing a knife 刀 separating the horn 角 from an ox 牛, picturing the act of cutting apart, hence to untie, to separate and to solve.

Origin
ideographic
Root
角 (horn) + 刀 (knife) + 牛 (ox)

Stroke order

Stroke order for 解

Examples

I understand how you feel.

Could you please explain?

We need to solve this problem.

shéng

Please untie this rope.

I cannot solve this problem.

解 (jiě) means to untie or to solve, and extends to to understand. It anchors a cluster of cognition and problem-solving verbs: 了解 (to understand, to be informed), 理解 (to comprehend), 解释 (to explain), and 解决 (to solve).

Appears in 4 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 解.

Used in

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This word is part of lesson 101.