差
chàchācīchāi HSK1

to differ

差 chà frequency
inferior adjective
inferior; poor quality; not up to standard

这台电脑的质量很差。

zhè tái diàn​nǎo de zhì​liàng hěn chà.

The quality of this computer is very poor.

lack verb
to fall short; to lack; missing

我们现在还差一个人。

wǒ​men xiàn​zài hái chà yī gè rén.

We're still one person short.

差 chā
difference noun
difference, discrepancy, or the mathematical result of a subtraction

十减七的差是三。

shí jiǎn qī de chā shì sān.

The difference between ten and seven is three.

slightly idiom
a little or somewhat (literary usage)

他的表现差强人意。

tā de biǎo​xiàn chā​qiáng​rén​yì.

His performance was barely satisfactory.

差 cī
uneven idiom
used in 参差 cēn​cī

公园里的树木长得参差不齐。

gōng​yuán lǐ de shù​mù zhǎng de cēn cī bù​qí.

The trees in the park are growing unevenly.

差 chāi
assignment verb
an official post, job, or a person sent to perform such a duty

他在旧政府里当差。

tā zài jiù zhèng​fǔ lǐ dāng chāi.

He served as a low-level official in the old government.

dispatch verb
to send someone on an errand or a specific mission

公司差他去处理这桩生意。

gōng​sī chāi tā qù chǔ​lǐ zhè zhuāng shēng​yi.

The company dispatched him to handle this business deal.

Frequency
Character
Written text
732nd most common 260.2 per million
Movie subtitles
599th most common 237.2 per million appears in 73% of films
Word
Movie subtitles
89.9 per million appears in 31% of films
Written text
136.8 per million

Details
HSK 2.0
Level 3
HSK 3.0
Level 1
Strokes
9
Unicode
U+5DEE

Sources
Definitions
CC-CEDICT
Frequency data
MTSU Chinese text computingSUBTLEX-CHBCC Corpus (BLCU)