蹭 (cèng): to rub against, to walk slowly, (coll.) to freeload

蹭 (cèng) is a Chinese character meaning “to rub against.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 足 (semantic) and 曾 (phonetic). It ranks #2957 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 蹭 foot. Its radical form 足 (foot) appears in many related characters such as 跑 (pǎo, to run), 跟 (gēn, follow, heel), 路 (lù, road).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 足 foot19 strokesFrequency #2957足 semantic曾 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to rub against
  2. to walk slowly
  3. (coll.) to freeload

Etymology & Origin

蹭

pictophoneticfoot

Decomposition: ⿰足曾 (layout: left-right)

Components:足semantic曾phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
磨蹭mó cengto rub lightly
蹭热度cèng rè dù(coll.) (often derog.) to piggyback on (sb's) popularity
蹭车cèng chē(coll.) to ride in sb else's car to save money
蹭吃cèng chīto freeload for food
蹭吃蹭喝cèng chī cèng hēto cadge a meal
蹭网cèng wǎng(coll.) to use sb else's Internet connection (with or without permission)
蹭饭cèng fàn(coll.) to mooch a meal
蹭课cèng kè(coll.) to sit in on a class
磨磨蹭蹭mó mó cèng cèngto dillydally
刮蹭guā cèngto scrape one's car against sth
蹭蹬cèng dèng(literary) to encounter setbacks
11
Total compounds
73
As first character
18
As last character
9
As middle character

蹭 appears in 11 compound words: 73 as the first character, 18 as the last, and 9 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 蹭 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

蹬dēng
0.61284 co-occurrences
刮guā
0.571180 co-occurrences
磨mó
0.533372 co-occurrences
喝hē
0.45396 co-occurrences
饭fàn
0.43054 co-occurrences
吃chī
0.425150 co-occurrences
热rè
0.399150 co-occurrences
点diǎn
0.30584 co-occurrences
度dù
0.270144 co-occurrences
被bèi
0.17848 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

老师教我们蹭字的发音和笔顺。

lǎo shī jiào wǒ men cèng zì de fā yīn hé bǐ shùn .

The teacher taught us the pronunciation and stroke order of the character "蹭."

EttodayFeb 2026

短裙女搭捷运“大腿被蹭10秒” 低头见痴汉露鸟套弄

duǎn qún nǚ dā jié yùn dà tuǐ bèi cèng 1 0 miǎo dī tóu jiàn chī hàn lù niǎo tào nòng

The woman in a short skirt took the MRT and "her thighs were rubbed for 10 seconds" and looked down to see the fool dew and the bird

Tatoeba

要不是他这么磨磨蹭蹭，现在早做完了。

Yàobushì tā zhème mómócèngcèng, xiànzài zǎo zuòwán le.

If he hadn't wasted time, he'd be finished by now.

Tatoeba

你磨蹭什么呀，快点去吧。

Nǐ móceng shénme ya, kuài diǎn qù ba.

What are you lingering for? Hurry up and go.

Tatoeba

我去你那蹭饭吃。

Wǒqù nǐ nà cèng fàn chī.

I'm going to mooch a meal off you at your place.

Character Family

足 Radical Family — Characters sharing the foot radical

蹦bèng踩cǎi踹chuài蹈dǎo蹬dēng蹲cún跟gēn跪guì践jiàn跤jiāo

Related Characters

跑pǎo跟gēn路lù足zú跳tiào距jù跃yuè跌diē跨kuà跪guì

Homophones — Characters pronounced cèng

层céng曾céng

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 蹭 (cèng) mean in Chinese?
蹭 (cèng) primarily means "to rub against." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2957 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 蹭 and 增?
蹭 (cèng) and 增 (zēng) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 足 vs 土 (same 曾 component).
How many strokes does 蹭 have?
蹭 is written with 19 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 蹭?
The radical associated with 蹭 is 足 (foot). This radical appears in many characters related to foot.
What are the components of 蹭?
蹭 is composed of: 足 (semantic), 曾 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰足曾 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 蹭?
Common words with 蹭 include: 磨蹭 (mó ceng, "to rub lightly"); 蹭热度 (cèng rè dù, "(coll.) (often derog.) to piggyback on (sb's) popularity"); 蹭车 (cèng chē, "(coll.) to ride in sb else's car to save money"); 蹭吃 (cèng chī, "to freeload for food"); 蹭吃蹭喝 (cèng chī cèng hē, "to cadge a meal"). There are over 11 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 蹭 (cèng)?
Several characters share the pronunciation cèng: 层 (to pile on top of one another), 曾 (once). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 蹭 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 蹭 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 蹭 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.