How to Write 谇 (suì) — Meaning “to scold or reproach”

Imagine a soldier (卒) who speaks (讠) angrily, scolding his troops. The soldier’s quick, harsh words sound like "swee" (suì) as he reprimands them. This mental picture links the speech radical, the soldier component, and the meaning of scolding.

Write the left radical 讠 first, with two strokes (a dot and a short horizontal-to-vertical hook). The right side 卒 has eight strokes: start with the top dot, then two diagonals, then left-falling stroke, and finally the vertical line with two horizontal dashes. A common mistake is to confuse the bottom of 卒 with the character 十 — make sure the vertical line goes through the two dashes.

谇 (suì) means "to scold" and contains 卒, while 诓 (kuāng) means "to deceive" and contains 匡. 诔 (lěi) means "to eulogize the dead" and contains 耒. Visually, the right-side components are different: 卒 (soldier) vs. 匡 (basket) vs. 耒 (plow). Their meanings also diverge: scolding vs. cheating vs. writing a funeral elegy.

谇 is a literary or formal character, rarely used in everyday speech. It appears in expressions like 诟谇 (gòu suì, to insult) and 谇语 (suì yǔ, reproachful words), often in written texts or classical Chinese. You might encounter it in historical novels or formal criticisms, but it is not common in casual conversation.

Common words containing 谇 include: 谇语 (suì yǔ) — reproachful words; 诟谇 (gòu suì) — to scold; to insult; 闲谇 (xián suì) — idle gossip / to talk idly.