also: しっぺい
Zen stick; wake-up stick
A flat bamboo stick used in Zen meditation to strike the shoulders of drowsy practitioners. Primarily a Buddhist term; the reading しっぺい is more common in this context.
During zazen, the master strikes the shoulder of a drowsy practitioner with the shippei.
flick on the wrist; finger snap strike
A playful or disciplinary gesture where one flicks the back of another's wrist with the index and middle fingers. Usually read しっぺ. Common in school or casual settings.
When I played a prank, my friend gave me a flick on the wrist.
A shippe hurts but doesn't cause injury.
A flick on the forehead, similar playful punishment but targeting the forehead instead of the wrist.
Alternate reading, mainly for the Zen stick sense; rarely used in modern Japanese.
Ateji kanji for the Zen stick; almost never seen outside Buddhist contexts.
Ateji kanji variant for the Zen stick; extremely rare.
A contraction of しっぺい, the Sino-Japanese reading of 竹篦, a bamboo implement used for admonition in Zen practice. The finger-flicking sense developed from the idea of a sharp corrective blow.