sǎo
balayer; balai
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我每天都扫地。
wǒ měitiān dōu sǎodì.
I sweep the floor every day.
他正在扫雪。
tā zhèngzài sǎoxuě.
He is shoveling snow.
我们应该把垃圾扫干净。
wǒmen yīnggāi bǎ lājī sǎogànjìng.
We should clean up the trash.
留 (liú)
leave
放 (fàng)
put
The Chinese character 扫 (sǎo) for "to sweep" is composed of two parts: the radical 扌(shǒu), which indicates an action related to the hand, and the phonetic component 叟 (sǒu). The radical 扌 suggests that the character is related to an action performed with the hand, while the phonetic component 叟 provides a clue to its pronunciation. The original form of 扫 was 攴, which was a pictograph depicting a hand holding a broom. Over time, the character evolved into its current form, with the addition of the phonetic component 叟 to aid in pronunciation. The character 扫 is commonly used in Chinese to express the action of sweeping or cleaning with a broom.
