How to Write 袼 (gē) — Meaning “Armpit of a garment”

Think of the phrase 'each (各) piece of clothing (衤) has an armpit.' The sound 'gē' may remind you of 'gear'—imagine your sleeve's armpit area as a gear that lets your arm move. Connecting 'each garment' and 'armpit' makes the meaning easy to recall.

Write the left radical 衤 first: dot, horizontal, left-falling, vertical, and right-falling—keep it narrow. Then add the right part 各: start with the top 夂 (left-falling, horizontal, right-falling) and then the bottom 口 (vertical, horizontal, vertical). Common mistakes include making the left radical too wide or confusing the stroke order of 夂 (it is three separate strokes, not connected).

Visually, 袼 has 各 on the right, 衲 has 内 (inside), and 衹 has 氏 (clan). Meaning-wise, 袼 specifically refers to the armpit part of a garment. 衲 (nà) means 'to patch' or 'mend clothing,' often seen in 衲衣 (monk's patched robe). 衹 (zhǐ) is an adverb meaning 'only' or 'but,' used in words like 衹是 (zhǐ shì, 'only').

袼 is very rare in daily Chinese and not in the HSK vocabulary. You will mainly see it in traditional craft terms like 袼褙 (gē bèi), which refers to layers of cloth or paper pasted together to make shoe soles or book covers. The process of 做袼褙 (zuò gē bèi) is a fading handcraft in rural China, used in making cloth shoes.

Common words containing 袼 include: 袼褙 (gē bèi) — Pasted cloth layers (used for making shoe soles); 袼褙儿 (gē bèi ér) — Pasted cloth or paper layers; 做袼褙 (zuò gē bèi) — to make paste-up rags for shoe soles.