(shǐ) - to cause, to make; to use, to employ in Mandarin
shǐTraditional: 使
Translation
to cause, to make; to use, to employ
Word origin
使 (shǐ) means 'to cause, to make' and 'to employ, to send'. It is a phono-semantic compound with the 亻(person) radical for meaning and 吏 (lì, an official) as the rest of the body, the underlying sense being to dispatch a person to act.
- Origin
- phono-semantic compound
- Root
- 亻(person radical) + 吏 (lì, official)
Stroke order
使
Examples
。
This matter makes me very worried.
。
His words caused me to change my mind.
具。
Using this tool will be more convenient.
鼓励。
The teacher's encouragement gave him more confidence.
。
Music makes people relax.
使 (shǐ) as a causative verb means to cause, to make, or to enable - typically followed by a subject plus adjective or verb complement structure (使我高兴, makes me happy). It is more formal than 让 (ràng) or 叫 (jiào), which have the same causative function in colloquial speech. In the compound 使用 (shǐ yòng) it means to use or to employ (a tool or method). 使 alone can also mean an envoy or emissary (大使, ambassador).
Appears in 3 words
Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 使.
Used in
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Go to my review queueThis word is part of lesson 11.