删

刪

shān

册 + 刂

HSK 3.0Level 5

Definitions

shān to delete

Etymology

To cut 刂 out passages from a book 册

About

The character 删 (traditional: 刪) is an ideogrammatic compound. Its right side features the vertical knife radical 刂, indicating a cutting action. The left side contains 册 (traditional: 冊), which depicts a bound volume of ancient wooden or bamboo writing slips. This structure originally represented the physical act of using a knife to scrape away writing errors from bamboo strips during text editing. This historical practice directly informs the character's modern meaning: to delete, cut, remove, or omit words, data, or content from documents or files.

Etymology Hide

Seal Shuowen (~100 AD)

Traditional Modern

Simplified Modern

Example Sentences Hide

他删除了旧文件。

Tā shānchúle jiù wénjiàn.

He deleted the old files.

请把这条错误信息删掉。

Qǐng bǎ zhè tiáo cuòwù xìnxī shān diào.

Please delete this error message.

如果你不喜欢这张照片，就删掉吧。

Rúguǒ nǐ bù xǐhuān zhè zhāng zhàopiàn, jiù shān diào ba.

If you don't like this photo, just delete it.

管理员有权删除不当的评论。

Guǎnlǐyuán yǒu quán shānchú bùdàng de pínglùn.

Administrators have the right to delete inappropriate comments.

这篇作文需要删去多余的部分。

Zhè piān zuòwén xūyào shān qù duōyú de bùfèn.

This essay needs to have its redundant parts removed.

在发布之前，他反复删改了文章的关键段落。

Zài fābù zhīqián, tā fǎnfù shān gǎile wénzhāng de guānjiàn duànluò.

Before publishing, he repeatedly deleted and revised key paragraphs of the article.

电影审查制度导致了许多镜头被强行删减。

Diànyǐng shěnchá zhìdù dǎozhìle xǔduō jìngtóu bèi qiángxíng shānjiǎn.

The film censorship system resulted in many scenes being forcibly cut.

为了控制篇幅，编辑建议删繁就简，突出重点。

Wèile kòngzhì piānfú, biānjí jiànyì shān fán jiù jiǎn, tūchū zhòngdiǎn.

To control the length, the editor suggested simplifying by deleting the complex and keeping the simple, to highlight the main points.

Related Characters

Component: 册

Component: 刂

删