扒 (bā): to peel, to skin, to tear

扒 (bā) is a Chinese character meaning “to peel.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 扌 (semantic) and 八 (phonetic). It ranks #2810 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 扒 hand. Its radical form 扌 (hand) appears in many related characters such as 手 (shǒu, hand), 打 (dǎ, hit, make), 找 (zhǎo, to look for).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. to peel
  2. to skin
  3. to tear

Etymology & Origin

扒

pictophonetichand

Decomposition: ⿰扌八 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5

Practice writing 扒 with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
扒手nounpá shǒupickpocket
扒开bā kāito pry open or apart
扒窃verbpá qièto steal
吃里扒外chī lǐ pá wài(idiom) to work against the interests of sb one derives support from
扒拉verbbā la(coll.) to push lightly
扒头儿bā tou rhandhold (to pull oneself up)
周扒皮zhōu bā píZhou the exploiter, archetypal character in short story 半夜雞叫|半夜鸡叫
扒高踩低pá gāo cǎi dīcrawl high, step low (idiom)
扒屋牵牛bā wū qiān niúto sack the home and lead off the cattle (proverb)
扒车verbbā chēto pull oneself up onto a moving vehicle
扒皮verbbā píto flay
扒饭verbpá fànto push food into one's mouth using chopsticks while holding one's bowl up to one's mouth
揪心扒肝jiū xīn bā gān(idiom) extremely anxious
牛扒nounniú pá(dialect) beef steak
鸡扒nounjī pásee 雞排|鸡排
24
Total compounds
67
As first character
21
As last character
13
As middle character

扒 appears in 24 compound words: 67 as the first character, 21 as the last, and 13 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Strongest Collocations

Characters that most frequently co-occur with 扒 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

鸡jī
0.465118 co-occurrences
煎jiān
0.46250 co-occurrences
窃qiè
0.45160 co-occurrences
粪fèn
0.42718 co-occurrences
裤kù
0.39614 co-occurrences
手shǒu
0.394768 co-occurrences
牛niú
0.373128 co-occurrences
坟fén
0.36214 co-occurrences
猪zhū
0.35730 co-occurrences
舟zhōu
0.35436 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (2)

揪心扒肝jiū xīn bā gānHSK 7+

(idiom) extremely anxious; anguished

phrase

Showing 1 of 2 idioms containing 扒.

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他扒了一个电话,约朋友晚上一起吃饭。

tā bā le yī gě diàn huà , yāo péng yǒu wǎn shǎng yī qǐ chī fàn .

He made a phone call to arrange dinner with a friend that evening.

中国新闻网·文化Aug 2026

但很多时候,我能扒到层层叠叠的公众号文章,甚至新闻报道的引用,却始终找不到原始数据。

dàn hěn duō shí hòu , wǒ néng bā dào céng céng dié dié de gōng zhòng hào wén zhāng , shèn zhì xīn wén bào dào de yǐn yòng , què shǐ zhōng zhǎo bù dào yuán shǐ shǔ jù .

But often, I can dig through layer upon layer of WeChat Official Account articles—and even citations from news reports—yet I still can’t find the original data.

中国新闻网·生活Jul 2026

吃菠萝蜜时扒出来的果核,很多人都扔掉了吧?

chī 菠 luó mì shí bā chū lái de guǒ hé , hěn duō rén dōu rēng diào le ba ?

When you eat jackfruit, you peel out the seeds—I bet a lot of people just throw them away, right?

少数派Jul 2026

没苦硬吃的“蓬莱扒仙”,究竟能否暗渡陈仓?

méi kǔ yìng chī de péng lái bā xiān , jiū jìng néng fǒu àn dù chén cāng ?

Can “Penglai Ba Xian,” which isn’t one to take things lying down, pull off a surprise move?

中国新闻网_梳理天下新闻Mar 2026

扒素材、做视频、克隆声音 “AI魔改”生意...

bā sù cái , zuò shì pín , kè lóng shēng yīn A I mó gǎi shēng yì . . .

Scraping content, creating videos, and cloning voices: the "AI-modified" business...

百度新闻Feb 2026

...026祛斑产品什么好?十大祛斑产品排名深扒:祛斑..

. . . 0 2 6 祛 bān chǎn pǐn shén má hǎo ? shí dà 祛 bān chǎn pǐn pái míng shēn bā : 祛 bān . .

... 026 What are the best freckle removal products? Top 10 freckle removal product rankings: freckle removal:

Tatoeba

再惹我生气,小心我扒了你的皮!

Zài rě wǒ shēngqì, xiǎoxīn wǒ bā le nǐ de pí!

Anger me again, I might just peel your skin off.

Tatoeba

我的信用卡在地铁上被扒了。

Wǒ de xìnyòngkǎ zàidì tiě shàng bèi bā le.

My credit card was stolen on the subway.

Tatoeba

这里要小心扒手。

Zhèlǐ yào xiǎoxīn páshǒu.

Beware of pickpockets here.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 扌 (hand) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced bā

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 扒 (bā) mean in Chinese?
扒 (bā) primarily means "to peel." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2810 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 扒 and 办?
扒 (bā) and 办 (bàn) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 扌 vs 力 (same 八 component).
How many strokes does 扒 have?
扒 is written with 5 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 扒?
The radical associated with 扒 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 扒?
扒 is composed of: 扌 (semantic), 八 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌八 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 扒?
Common words with 扒 include: 扒手 (pá shǒu, "pickpocket"); 扒开 (bā kāi, "to pry open or apart"); 扒窃 (pá qiè, "to steal"); 吃里扒外 (chī lǐ pá wài, "(idiom) to work against the interests of sb one derives support from"); 扒拉 (bā la, "(coll.) to push lightly"). There are over 24 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 扒 (bā)?
Several characters share the pronunciation bā: 叭 (denote a sound or sharp noise (gunfire etc)), 把 (to hold, measure word), 吧 (suggestion particle), 八 (eight), and 4 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 扒 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 扒 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 扒 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear spoken pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.