搓 (cuō): to rub or roll between the hands or fingers, to twist

搓 (cuō) is a Chinese character meaning “to rub or roll between the hands or fingers.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 扌 (semantic) and 差 (phonetic). It ranks #2797 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 搓 hand. Its radical form 扌 (hand) appears in many related characters such as 手 (shǒu, hand), 打 (dǎ, hit, make), 找 (zhǎo, to look for).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 扌 hand13 strokesFrequency #2797扌 semantic差 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to rub or roll between the hands or fingers
  2. to twist

Etymology & Origin

搓

pictophonetichand

Decomposition: ⿰扌差 (layout: left-right)

Components:扌semantic差phonetic

Stroke Order

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

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
搓洗cuō xǐto rub clean (garments)
揉搓róu cuoto rub
搓板cuō bǎnwashboard
搓麻将cuō má jiàngto play mahjong
搓衣板cuō yī bǎnwashboard
搓揉cuō róuto knead
6
Total compounds
83
As first character
17
As last character
0
As middle character

搓 appears in 6 compound words: 83 as the first character, 17 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 搓 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

揉róu
0.7221,014 co-occurrences
澡zǎo
0.548204 co-occurrences
液yè
0.488654 co-occurrences
捏niē
0.45060 co-occurrences
醇chún
0.433132 co-occurrences
挠náo
0.43236 co-occurrences
洗xǐ
0.428246 co-occurrences
绳shéng
0.41054 co-occurrences
梭suō
0.39554 co-occurrences
擦cā
0.38460 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他搓了一个电话，约朋友晚上一起吃饭。

tā cuō le yī gě diàn huà , yāo péng yǒu wǎn shǎng yī qǐ chī fàn .

He dialed a number and made plans to meet a friend for dinner that evening.

Tatoeba

帮我搓一下背好吗？

Bāng wǒ cuō yīxià bèi hǎo ma?

Can you rub my back?

Character Family

扌 Radical Family — Characters sharing the hand radical

挨āi按àn扒bā拔bá把bǎ摆bǎi扳bān搬bān扮bàn拌bàn

Related Characters

手shǒu打dǎ找zhǎo拿ná才cái护hù报bào拉lā挺tǐng换huàn

Homophones — Characters pronounced cuō

磋cuō挫cuò措cuò错cuò

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 搓 (cuō) mean in Chinese?
搓 (cuō) primarily means "to rub or roll between the hands or fingers." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2797 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 搓 have?
搓 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 搓?
The radical associated with 搓 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 搓?
搓 is composed of: 扌 (semantic), 差 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌差 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 搓?
Common words with 搓 include: 搓洗 (cuō xǐ, "to rub clean (garments)"); 揉搓 (róu cuo, "to rub"); 搓板 (cuō bǎn, "washboard"); 搓麻将 (cuō má jiàng, "to play mahjong"); 搓衣板 (cuō yī bǎn, "washboard"). There are over 6 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 搓 (cuō)?
Several characters share the pronunciation cuō: 磋 ((old) to polish bones, horns, ivory etc into tools), 挫 (obstructed), 措 (to handle), 错 (wrong, mistake). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 搓 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 搓 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 搓 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.