(chǎo): to stir-fry

(chǎo) is a Chinese character meaning “to stir-fry.” Classified as HSK Level 5 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (semantic) and (phonetic). It ranks #2481 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, fire. Its radical form (fire) appears in many related characters such as (huǒ, fire), (dēng, lamp, light), (yān, smoke).

Native pronunciation

Definitions

  1. to stir-fry

Etymology & Origin

pictophoneticfire

Decomposition: ⿰火少 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

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

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
verbchǎo gǔ(coll.) to speculate in stocks6

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
鱿chǎo yóu yú(coll.) to fire sb
chǎo zuòto hype
chǎo miànstir-fried noodles
chǎo fànfried rice
chǎo càito stir-fry
chǎo mǐfried rice
chǎo lěng fànto stir-fry leftover rice
bào chǎoto stir-fry rapidly using a high flame
chǎo guōwok
xiàn chǎo xiàn màilit. to fry and sell on the spot
shēng chǎo rè màito sell while it's still hot (idiom)
chǎo dì píto speculate in building land
rè chǎo rè màilit. to sell hot food freshly cooked
chǎo jiāspeculator
kuài chǎo diàn(Tw) low-budget eatery
41
Total compounds
59
As first character
22
As last character
20
As middle character

appears in 41 compound words: 59 as the first character, 22 as the last, and 20 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 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

fàn
0.5161,338 co-occurrences
bàn
0.509558 co-occurrences
0.5031,290 co-occurrences
gāo
0.4931,194 co-occurrences
ròu
0.4772,916 co-occurrences
cài
0.4742,722 co-occurrences
jiān
0.470414 co-occurrences
dàn
0.4672,298 co-occurrences
jiāo
0.454552 co-occurrences
zhǔ
0.452606 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

青菜要用大火快,这样才能保持蔬菜的脆嫩。

Chǎo qīngcài yào yòng dàhuǒ kuài chǎo, zhèyàng cáinéng bǎochí shūcài de cuìnèn.

Stir-frying green vegetables requires high heat and quick cooking to maintain their crispness.

EtnetFeb 2026

【北水D乜】净流出40.57亿元,买腾讯沽盈富...

běi shuǐ chǎo D 乜 jìng liú chū 4 0 . 5 7 yì yuán , mǎi téng xùn gū yíng fù . . .

[Beishui speculates] net outflow of 4.057 billion yuan, buy Tencent and sell Yingfu...

EtnetFeb 2026

【北水D乜】净流入31.31亿元,买南方恒生科...

běi shuǐ chǎo D 乜 jìng liú rù 3 1 . 3 1 yì yuán , mǎi nán fāng héng shēng kē . . .

The net inflow was 3.131 billion yuan, buying Southern Hang Seng Technology...

Yahoo FinanceFeb 2026

【中环解密】日睡8小时被 投行分析师兴讼

zhōng huán jiě mì rì shuì 8 xiǎo shí bèi chǎo tóu háng fēn xī shī xīng sòng

【Central Decryption】Sleeping for 8 hours a day was fired and investment bank analysts filed a lawsuit

StheadlineFeb 2026

赤柱Tesla自撼栏 车头铲上行人路幸无伤

chì zhù T e s l a zì chǎo hàn lán chē tóu chǎn shàng háng rén lù xìng wú shāng

Stanley Tesla shook the railing with the front of the car shoveling on the sidewalk, but fortunately, there were no injuries

百度新闻Feb 2026

抖音集团李亮:作“字节是恒科的最大空头”很荒唐也..

dǒu yīn jí tuán lǐ liàng chǎo zuò zì jié shì héng kē de zuì dà kōng tóu hěn huāng táng yě . .

Jitterbug Group's Li Liang: The speculation that "Byte is the biggest short of Henco" is absurd and...

Tatoeba

你害怕被鱿鱼吗?

Nǐ hàipà bèi chǎo yóuyú ma?

Are you afraid of being fired?

Tatoeba

我知道怎么做俄式牛肉片。

Wǒ zhīdào zěnme zuò é shì chǎo niúròu piàn.

I know how to make beef stroganoff.

Tatoeba

他叫了一盘什锦。

Tā jiào le yī pán chǎo shíjǐn.

He ordered a chop suey.

Tatoeba

他在上个景气时期股攒下了一笔钱。

Tā zài shàngge jǐngqì shíqī chǎogǔ cuán xià le yī bǐ qián.

He amassed a fortune in stock trading during the last boom.

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced chǎo

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 炒 (chǎo) mean in Chinese?
炒 (chǎo) primarily means "to stir-fry." It is classified as HSK Level 5, making it an advanced character. It ranks #2481 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 炒 and 妙?
炒 (chǎo) and 妙 (miào) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 火 vs 女 (same 少 component).
How many strokes does 炒 have?
炒 is written with 8 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 炒?
The radical associated with 炒 is 火 (fire). This radical appears in many characters related to fire.
What are the components of 炒?
炒 is composed of: 火 (semantic), 少 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰火少 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 炒?
Common words with 炒 include: 炒鱿鱼 (chǎo yóu yú, "(coll.) to fire sb"); 炒作 (chǎo zuò, "to hype"); 炒面 (chǎo miàn, "stir-fried noodles"); 炒饭 (chǎo fàn, "fried rice"); 炒菜 (chǎo cài, "to stir-fry"). There are over 41 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 炒 (chǎo)?
Several characters share the pronunciation chǎo: 抄 (to make a copy), 钞 (banknote), 吵 (to quarrel), 超 (to exceed), and 1 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 炒 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 炒 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing with real-time feedback

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

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.