睬 (cǎi): to pay attention, to take notice of, to care for

睬 (cǎi) is a Chinese character meaning “to pay attention.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 目 (semantic) and 采 (phonetic). It ranks #2854 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 睬 eye. Its radical form 目 (eye) appears in many related characters such as 看 (kàn, to look, to see), 真 (zhēn, really), 着 (zhe, -ing, to wear).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 目 eye13 strokesFrequency #2854目 semantic采 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to pay attention
  2. to take notice of
  3. to care for

Etymology & Origin

睬

pictophoneticeye

Decomposition: ⿰目采 (layout: left-right)

Components:目semantic采phonetic

Stroke Order

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

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
理睬lǐ cǎito heed
不理不睬bù lǐ bù cǎito completely ignore (idiom)
不加理睬bù jiā lǐ cǎiwithout giving due consideration
不瞅不睬bù chǒu bù cǎi(idiom) to ignore completely
瞅睬chǒu cǎito pay attention to
5
Total compounds
0
As first character
100
As last character
0
As middle character

睬 appears in 5 compound words: 0 as the first character, 100 as the last, and 0 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 睬 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

瞅chǒu
0.70172 co-occurrences
予yú
0.481708 co-occurrences
理lǐ
0.4772,724 co-occurrences
不bù
0.4182,535 co-occurrences
没méi
0.373222 co-occurrences
未wèi
0.334288 co-occurrences
毫háo
0.31154 co-occurrences
甚shèn
0.28948 co-occurrences
无wú
0.27672 co-occurrences
互hù
0.27636 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

不理不睬bù lǐ bù cǎiHSK 7+

to completely ignore (idiom); to pay no attention to; not to be in the least concerned about

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

睬字在不同的语境中有不同的用法。

cǎi zì zài bù tóng de yǔ jìng zhōng yǒu bù tóng de yòng fǎ .

The character "睬" has different usages in different contexts.

Tatoeba

凱特看了克里斯一眼，然後不理睬他，使他感到痛苦。

Kǎitè kàn le Kèlǐsī yīyǎn, ránhòu bù lǐcǎi tā, shǐ tā gǎndào tòngkǔ.

Kate glanced at Chris and then ignored him, making him feel miserable.

Character Family

目 Radical Family — Characters sharing the eye radical

瞅chǒu瞪dèng盯dīng督dū睹dǔ盹dǔn睛jīng眶kuàng睐lài瞒mán

Related Characters

看kàn真zhēn着zhe睡shuì觉jué目mù直zhí相xiāng省shěng眼yǎn

Homophones — Characters pronounced cǎi

彩cǎi踩cǎi菜cài猜cāi才cái材cái财cái裁cái采cǎi

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 睬 (cǎi) mean in Chinese?
睬 (cǎi) primarily means "to pay attention." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2854 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 睬 have?
睬 is written with 13 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 睬?
The radical associated with 睬 is 目 (eye). This radical appears in many characters related to eye.
What are the components of 睬?
睬 is composed of: 目 (semantic), 采 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰目采 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 睬?
Common words with 睬 include: 理睬 (lǐ cǎi, "to heed"); 不理不睬 (bù lǐ bù cǎi, "to completely ignore (idiom)"); 不加理睬 (bù jiā lǐ cǎi, "without giving due consideration"); 不瞅不睬 (bù chǒu bù cǎi, "(idiom) to ignore completely"); 瞅睬 (chǒu cǎi, "to pay attention to"). There are over 5 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 睬 (cǎi)?
Several characters share the pronunciation cǎi: 彩 ((bright) color), 踩 (to step on), 菜 (vegetable, dish), 猜 (to guess), and 5 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 睬 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 睬 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 睬 with real-time feedback

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

Download on theApp StoreGet it onGoogle Play

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.