刷牙
shuā yá · HSK 4
to brush one's teeth
🪥🦷 刷 = brush + 牙 = tooth
刷 means to brush or scrub (also used for brushing hair, scrubbing pots). 牙 is tooth or fang. Put together, 刷牙 literally reads as brush-tooth, the everyday verb for brushing your teeth.
刷 — 刂 knife + 㕞 (brush, phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The right side 㕞 originally depicted a brush or scrubber and supplies the sound, while the knife radical 刂 hints at scraping or sweeping action. The character came to mean 'to brush, scrub, or swipe,' later extending to modern senses like swiping a card or binge-watching.
牙 — pictograph of interlocking molars/tusks
牙 originated as a pictograph of two interlocking teeth or animal tusks, showing the upper and lower jaws meshing together. Originally it referred specifically to molars or fangs (as opposed to 齒, the front teeth), and by extension came to mean tusks and ivory. In modern Chinese it is the general word for 'tooth.'