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回收 (huí shōu) — to recycle; to reclaim (waste materials for reuse); to recall (defective products); to recover (lost data/files)

Definition

回收 means to recycle or reclaim materials, or to recall/recover something (products, data). The closest sibling 再生 focuses on materials being reborn into new use, while 回收 is the act of collecting them back.

verb
to recycleto reclaim (waste materials for reuse)to recall (defective products)to recover (lost data/files)

Examples

  • 回收。
    Zhè zhǒng sù liào píng kě yǐ huí shōu lì yòng.
    This kind of plastic bottle can be recycled and reused.
  • 回收。
    Gōng sī zhǔ dòng huí shōu le suǒ yǒu wèn tí chǎn pǐn.
    The company voluntarily recalled all defective products.
  • 回收。
    Gōng chéng shī cóng yìng pán zhōng huí shōu le zhòng yào wén jiàn.
    The engineer recovered important files from the hard drive.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

回huíback
收shōucollect

回 means back and 收 means collect; together they suggest collecting something back for reuse or retrieval.

Characters in this word

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

回 comes from a drawing of a spiral, showing something turning around.

Open 回 →

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
攴攴pū
Sound part声符shēngfú
丩
丩jiū收shōu
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

收 uses 攴 to show an action and 丩 as a sound clue; the old meaning was 'to arrest.'

Open 收 →
Appears in
HSK 3.0 Level 5HSK 2.0 Level 6Environment & Ecology

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