扳 (bān) is a Chinese character meaning “to pull or wrench something with the hand”. It is written from 扌 (hand (radical form)) and 反 (reverse; opposite; to turn over), side by side, and takes 7 strokes.
Build the character for “to pull, to turn”
Four steps: break it apart, build it, recall it, use it in a word.
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Structure
扌 + 反
Left–right structure
Structure from: modern glyph decomposition verified against hanzi-writer-data stroke geometry (7 strokes = 扌 3 + 反 4); radical 手 from Unicode CJKRadicals
Memory aid
A hand (扌) grabs something and turns it the other way round (反). That is 扳 — you pull it back.
This is a memory aid, not the historical origin.
Stroke order
7 strokes
In real words
- 扳手bān shǒuwrench; spanner扳 = bān
- 扳倒bān dǎoto pull down; to topple扳 = bān
Go deeper
All readings
to pull; to turn
to pull or wrench something with the hand; to turn something the other way; to turn around a losing situation
用手把东西往另一个方向拉动、转动。 — studyhanzi 编写
Words with this reading
- 扳手bān shǒuwrench; spanner扳 = bān
- 扳倒bān dǎoto pull down; to topple扳 = bān
Sound component
反 family onset shift
Stroke data: hanzi-writer-data (Arphic Public License) · licenses & attributions
Questions people ask about this character
What does 扳 mean?
扳 (bān) means to pull or wrench something with the hand; to turn something the other way; to turn around a losing situation.
How do you pronounce 扳?
It is pronounced bān.
What parts is 扳 made of?
扌 (hand (radical form)) and 反 (reverse; opposite; to turn over), side by side. The recorded source is: modern glyph decomposition verified against hanzi-writer-data stroke geometry (7 strokes = 扌 3 + 反 4); radical 手 from Unicode CJKRadicals. Components are the building blocks of the shape; the radical used for dictionary lookup is a separate thing.
How many strokes does 扳 have?
7. You can watch the stroke order on this page, or trace it yourself.
What is the radical of 扳?
手. The radical is how the character is filed in a dictionary — it is not the whole story of how the character is built.
What words use 扳?
Common ones are 扳手 and 扳倒. The reading of 扳 is not the same in every word, so each word on this page shows which reading applies.