嘈 (cáo): bustling

嘈 (cáo) is a Chinese character meaning “bustling.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 口 (semantic) and 曹 (phonetic). It ranks #3016 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 嘈 mouth. Its radical form 口 (mouth) appears in many related characters such as 口 (kǒu, mouth), 吃 (chī, to eat), 喝 (hē, to drink).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 口 mouth14 strokesFrequency #3016口 semantic曹 phonetic

Definitions

  1. bustling

Etymology & Origin

嘈

pictophoneticmouth

Decomposition: ⿰口曹 (layout: left-right)

Components:口semantic曹phonetic

Stroke Order

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

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
嘈杂cáo zánoisy
嘈杂声cáo zá shēngnoise
吐嘈tù cáovariant of 吐槽[tu4 cao2]
3
Total compounds
67
As first character
33
As last character
0
As middle character

嘈 appears in 3 compound words: 67 as the first character, 33 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 嘈 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

吐tǔ
0.6171,428 co-occurrences
吵chǎo
0.575426 co-occurrences
杂zá
0.526927 co-occurrences
喧xuān
0.47654 co-occurrences
声shēng
0.365198 co-occurrences
噪zào
0.35930 co-occurrences
音yīn
0.330468 co-occurrences
环huán
0.327120 co-occurrences
弦xián
0.31230 co-occurrences
叫jiào
0.31260 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

孩子们嘈渴了，纷纷跑到饮水机前接水。

hái zǐ men cáo kě le , fēn fēn pǎo dào yǐn shuǐ jī qián jiē shuǐ .

The children were thirsty, so they all rushed to the water cooler to get a drink.

Hk01.comFeb 2026

...诞三女 16岁细女搭飞机播片被斥唔戴耳机嘈到人

. . . dàn sān nǚ 1 6 suì xì nǚ dā fēi jī bō piàn bèi chì 唔 dài ěr jī cáo dào rén

... Three daughters were born A 16-year-old daughter was reprimanded for not wearing headphones while broadcasting a video on a plane

Character Family

口 Radical Family — Characters sharing the mouth radical

啊a哎āi哀āi唉āi叭bā吧ba哺bǔ唱chàng嘲cháo吵chǎo

Related Characters

口kǒu吃chī喝hē问wèn叫jiào响xiǎng名míng吐tǔ可kě吗ma

Homophones — Characters pronounced cáo

槽cáo

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 嘈 (cáo) mean in Chinese?
嘈 (cáo) primarily means "bustling." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #3016 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 嘈 and 糟?
嘈 (cáo) and 糟 (zāo) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 口 vs 米 (same 曹 component).
How many strokes does 嘈 have?
嘈 is written with 14 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 嘈?
The radical associated with 嘈 is 口 (mouth). This radical appears in many characters related to mouth.
What are the components of 嘈?
嘈 is composed of: 口 (semantic), 曹 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰口曹 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 嘈?
Common words with 嘈 include: 嘈杂 (cáo zá, "noisy"); 嘈杂声 (cáo zá shēng, "noise"); 吐嘈 (tù cáo, "variant of 吐槽[tu4 cao2]"). There are over 3 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 嘈 (cáo)?
Several characters share the pronunciation cáo: 槽 (trough). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 嘈 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 嘈 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 嘈 with real-time feedback

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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.