嗲

diǎ
adjective #34,324

Meanings

  1. 1 acting cute
  2. 2 speaking in a coquettish baby voice
  3. 3 affected, coy
  4. 4 excellent, the best

Examples

HSK 1
Tā shuōhuà hěn diǎ.
She talks in a sweet, cutesy way.
HSK 4
Bié zhème diǎ le, tīng zhe nánshòu.
Stop being so coy - it's hard to listen to.
HSK 7-9
Shànghǎihuà lǐ shuō ' wèidào diǎ ' jiùshì wèidào hǎo.
In Shanghainese, saying 'wèidào diǎ' means the flavor is great.

Tips

culture
A relatively young character (19th century) coined for the Shanghai/Wu sound. The mainstream Mandarin sense 'cutesy/coquettish' (often via 撒娇 sājiāo) became national slang from 上海话; reduplicated as 嗲嗲 or in 嗲声嗲气 it describes that breathy, drawn-out feminine speech style.
register
Informal - applied to women is descriptive; applied to men it's mocking. Original Wu meaning 'top-quality / awesome' survives in Shanghai food talk: 这家小笼嗲得很 ('these xiaolongbao are killer').

Components

radical
口 kǒu
mouth
Three-stroke mouth radical on the left, the indexing radical. 嗲 names the affectedly cute, drawn-out, pleading manner of speaking known in Shanghai dialect - purely a verbal mannerism. Groups with 哈 ha, 哎 ow, 嗯 mm, 啦 la - the modal particles.
phonetic
爹 diē
father; daddy (here phonetic)
Right side 爹 supplies the sound - diē shifting to diǎ with a vowel and tone change. 嗲 is a colloquial coinage of the Wu dialects describing the wheedling baby-talk one might use to a doting father - so there is a quiet pragmatic echo if you reach for it.

Stroke Order

嗲 diǎ