裳 (cháng): lower garment

裳 (cháng) is a Chinese character meaning “lower garment.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 尚 (phonetic) and 衣 (semantic). It ranks #3114 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 裳 clothes. Its radical form 衣 (clothing) appears in many related characters such as 褒 (bāo, to praise).

Spoken pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 衣 clothing14 strokesFrequency #3114尚 phonetic衣 semantic

Definitions

  1. lower garment

Etymology & Origin

裳

pictophoneticclothes

Decomposition: ⿱尚衣 (layout: top-bottom)

Components:尚phonetic衣semantic

Stroke Order

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

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
霓裳nounní chángnichang, rainbow colored clothes worn by the Eight Immortals 八仙
衣裳nounyī shang(coll.) clothes
衣裳钩儿yī shang gōu rclothes hook
3
Total compounds
0
As first character
67
As last character
33
As middle character

裳 appears in 3 compound words: 0 as the first character, 67 as the last, and 33 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 裳 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

咏yǒng
0.606394 co-occurrences
衣yī
0.5641,648 co-occurrences
黄huáng
0.460678 co-occurrences
冯féng
0.453182 co-occurrences
乃nǎi
0.419310 co-occurrences
蝶dié
0.414140 co-occurrences
杨yáng
0.407242 co-occurrences
帷wéi
0.38714 co-occurrences
绣xiù
0.38224 co-occurrences
裙qún
0.38236 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

我在字典里查到了裳字的详细解释。

wǒ zài zì diǎn lǐ chá dào le cháng zì de xiáng xì jiě shì .

I looked up the detailed definition of the character "裳" in the dictionary.

中国新闻网·文化Jun 2026

邓奶奶向记者展示了几张精美的布料，那是她将要绣给孙子孙女的衣裳和头巾。

dèng nǎi nǎi xiàng jì zhě zhǎn shì le jī zhāng jīng měi de bù liào , nà shì tā jiāng yāo xiù gěi sūn zǐ sūn nǚ de yī cháng hé tóu jīn .

Grandma Deng showed the reporter several pieces of beautiful fabric—the materials she plans to use to embroider clothes and headscarves for her grandchildren.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 衣 (clothes) component

装zhuāng袋dài裂liè裹guǒ褒bāo

Related Characters

褒bāo

Homophones — Characters pronounced cháng

常cháng尝cháng

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 裳 (cháng) mean in Chinese?
裳 (cháng) primarily means "lower garment." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #3114 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 裳 and 党?
裳 (cháng) and 党 (dǎng) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 衣 vs 儿 (same 尚 component).
How many strokes does 裳 have?
裳 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 裳?
The radical associated with 裳 is 衣 (clothing). This radical appears in many characters related to clothing.
What are the components of 裳?
裳 is composed of: 尚 (phonetic), 衣 (semantic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿱尚衣 with a top-bottom layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 裳?
Common words with 裳 include: 霓裳 (ní cháng, "nichang, rainbow colored clothes worn by the Eight Immortals 八仙"); 衣裳 (yī shang, "(coll.) clothes"); 衣裳钩儿 (yī shang gōu r, "clothes hook"). There are over 3 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 裳 (cháng)?
Several characters share the pronunciation cháng: 常 (always), 尝 (to taste). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 裳 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 裳 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 裳 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear spoken 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.