炸 zhà to explode
to explode; to fry in oil
How to remember 炸: 火 fire + 乍 suddenly = to explode. A spark from the barbecue fire lands on the fireworks, and suddenly the whole box begins to explode over the garden.
Component breakdown
炸 = 火 fire + 乍 suddenly
- 火 fire
- 乍 suddenly
A spark from the barbecue fire lands on the fireworks, and suddenly the whole box begins to explode over the garden.
How it is used
- Polyphone: as zhà it means to explode - 爆炸 bàozhà (explosion), 炸弹 zhàdàn (bomb), 轰炸 hōngzhà (to bomb).
- As zhá it means to deep-fry in oil, the reading used in food words like 炸酱面 zhájiàngmiàn (noodles with fried sauce) and 油炸 yóuzhá (deep-fried); many speakers also say zhà for frying colloquially, but zhá is the reading given in careful dictionaries for the cooking sense.
- Learners should keep straight which reading a given word takes - 炸弹 is always zhà, never zhá.