膊 (bó): shoulder, upper arm

膊 (bó) is a Chinese character meaning “shoulder.” Classified as HSK Level 4 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of ⺼ (semantic) and 尃 (phonetic). It ranks #2361 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 膊 flesh. Its radical form 肉 (meat) appears in many related characters such as 肉 (ròu, meat), 能 (néng, can), 背 (bèi, the back of a body or object).

Native pronunciation
HSK 4Radical: 肉 meat16 strokesFrequency #2361⺼ semantic尃 phonetic

Definitions

  1. shoulder
  2. upper arm

Etymology & Origin

膊

pictophoneticflesh

Decomposition: ⿰⺼尃 (layout: left-right)

Components:⺼semantic尃phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

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

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with 膊

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
胳膊noungē boarm4

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
胳膊肘gē bo zhǒuelbow
赤膊chì bóbare to the waist
赤膊上阵chì bó shàng zhènlit. to go into battle bare-breasted (idiom)
胳膊拧不过大腿gē bo nǐng bu guò dà tuǐ(idiom) the weak cannot overcome the strong
打赤膊dǎ chì bóto bare one's chest
胳膊肘往外拐gē bo zhǒu wǎng wài guǎisee 胳膊肘朝外拐[ge1 bo5 zhou3 chao2 wai4 guai3]
胳膊肘朝外拐gē bo zhǒu cháo wài guǎilit. the elbow turns outward (idiom)
胳膊肘子gē bo zhǒu zisee 胳膊肘[ge1 bo5 zhou3]
肩膊jiān bóshoulder
搭膊dā bóshoulder bag
臂膊bì bóarm
袒膊tǎn bóto strip to the waist
捋胳膊luō gē boto push up one's sleeves
14
Total compounds
0
As first character
57
As last character
43
As middle character

膊 appears in 14 compound words: 0 as the first character, 57 as the last, and 43 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 膊 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

胳gē
0.8882,412 co-occurrences
肩jiān
0.577912 co-occurrences
腿tuǐ
0.491348 co-occurrences
赤chì
0.489792 co-occurrences
畏wèi
0.467198 co-occurrences
臂bì
0.431168 co-occurrences
歪wāi
0.40336 co-occurrences
枕zhěn
0.40048 co-occurrences
摸mō
0.37942 co-occurrences
卸xiè
0.36790 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (2)

胳膊肘子gēbozhǒuziHSK 4+

elbow

noun

Showing 1 of 2 idioms containing 膊.

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他卷起袖子，露出结实的手臂。

Tā juǎn qǐ xiùzi, lùchū jiēshi de shǒubì.

He rolled up his sleeves, revealing his strong arms.

Tatoeba

警察抓著小偷的胳膊。

Jǐngchá zhuā zhe xiǎotōu de gēbo.

The policeman grabbed the robber's arm.

Tatoeba

我看见他们胳膊挽着胳膊地走路。

Wǒ kànjiàn tāmen gēbo wǎn zhe gēbo de zǒulù.

I saw them walking arm in arm.

Tatoeba

汤姆碰了我的胳膊肘。

Tāngmǔ pèng le wǒ de gēbozhǒu.

Tom touched my elbow.

Tatoeba

另一个抓住他的胳膊。

Lìngyī gè zhuāzhù tā de gēbo.

The other grasped his arm.

Tatoeba

他只要一动, 伤口就连带整个胳膊都疼。

Tā zhǐyào yī dòng, shāngkǒu jiù liándài zhěnggè gēbo dōu téng.

Whenever he moved, the wound sent pains all along his arm.

Tatoeba

他把身子靠在胳膊上。

Tā bǎ shēnzi kào zài gēbo shàng.

He leaned on his elbows.

Character Family

肉 Radical Family — Characters sharing the meat radical

胞bāo背bèi臂bì脖bó肠cháng胆dǎn肚dù肪fáng肥féi肺fèi

Related Characters

肉ròu能néng背bèi胜shèng胸xiōng脱tuō腐fǔ肩jiān胡hú胶jiāo

Homophones — Characters pronounced bó

博bó搏bó拨bō波bō玻bō播bō驳bó勃bó脖bó

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 膊 (bó) mean in Chinese?
膊 (bó) primarily means "shoulder." It is classified as HSK Level 4, making it an upper-intermediate character. It ranks #2361 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 膊 and 缚?
膊 (bó) and 缚 (fù) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 肉 vs 纟 (same 尃 component).
How many strokes does 膊 have?
膊 is written with 16 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 膊?
The radical associated with 膊 is 肉 (meat). This radical appears in many characters related to meat.
What are the components of 膊?
膊 is composed of: ⺼ (semantic), 尃 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰⺼尃 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 膊?
Common words with 膊 include: 胳膊 (gē bo, "arm"); 胳膊肘 (gē bo zhǒu, "elbow"); 赤膊 (chì bó, "bare to the waist"); 赤膊上阵 (chì bó shàng zhèn, "lit. to go into battle bare-breasted (idiom)"); 胳膊拧不过大腿 (gē bo nǐng bu guò dà tuǐ, "(idiom) the weak cannot overcome the strong"). There are over 14 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 膊 (bó)?
Several characters share the pronunciation bó: 博 ((bound form) abundant), 搏 (to fight), 拨 (to push aside with the hand, foot, a stick etc), 波 (wave), and 5 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 膊 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 膊 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

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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.