Chinese Character Wiki
该

gāi

should

Simplified form of 該. Phonosemantic compound. 言 represents the meaning and 亥 represents the sound.

Components
言 meaning component

言  Meaning component

yán

  

speech

亥 sound component

亥  Sound component

hài

  

12th terrestrial branch

Evolution

该 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
该 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
该 Traditional script Modern

Traditional script

Modern
该 Simplified script Modern

Simplified script

Modern
Definitions

该 (該) 

gāi

should, ought to, need to; should; ought to; probably; must be; to deserve; to owe; to be sb's turn to do sth; that; the above-mentioned

Most common words with 该
Freq.
Word
Meaning

该

should

应该

ought to

该死

Damn it!

不该

should not

活该

ought

Statistics

HSK level 2

Appears in 99.6636% of movies

95th most common character in movies

319th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

8

Traditional

該

Unicode

U+8BE5


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