祷 (dǎo): prayer, pray, supplication

祷 (dǎo) is a Chinese character meaning “prayer.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 礻 (semantic) and 寿 (phonetic). It ranks #2399 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 祷 spirit. Its radical form 礻 (spirit) appears in many related characters such as 票 (piào, ticket), 视 (shì, (literary, or bound form) to look at), 示 (shì, to show).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. prayer
  2. pray
  3. supplication

Etymology & Origin

祷

pictophoneticspirit

Decomposition: ⿰礻寿 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
祈祷verbqí dǎoto pray
祷告verbdǎo gàoto pray
祷文noundǎo wénlitany (text of a prayer)
默祷verbmò dǎosilent prayer
主祷文proper-nounzhǔ dǎo wénLord's Prayer
做祷告zuò dǎo gàoto pray
代祷verbdài dǎoto pray on behalf of sb
祷念dǎo niànto pray
晚祷nounwǎn dǎoevening prayer
闭会祈祷bì huì qí dǎobenediction
启应祈祷qǐ yìng qí dǎoIntroitus (section of Catholic mass)
祷词dǎo cílitany (text of a prayer)
晨祷nounchén dǎo(Anglican) matins
祷祝verbdǎo zhùto pray (for sth)
祝祷verbzhù dǎoto pray
16
Total compounds
31
As first character
56
As last character
13
As middle character

祷 appears in 16 compound words: 31 as the first character, 56 as the last, and 13 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 祷 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

祈qí
0.8156,813 co-occurrences
诵sòng
0.498136 co-occurrences
告gào
0.4671,822 co-occurrences
仪yí
0.397214 co-occurrences
跪guì
0.39542 co-occurrences
虔qián
0.38544 co-occurrences
旱hàn
0.38270 co-occurrences
颂sòng
0.36936 co-occurrences
绳shéng
0.36736 co-occurrences
咏yǒng
0.36426 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

祷字虽然难写,但意思很有趣。

dǎo zì suī rán nán xiě , dàn yì sī hěn yǒu qù .

The character for "pray" may be difficult to write, but its meaning is quite interesting.

爱范儿Aug 2026

说白了,联网游戏的机制意味着你只能祈祷平台不会将你热爱的游戏下架。

shuō bái le , lián wǎng yóu xì de jī zhì yì wèi zhe nǐ zhī néng qí dǎo píng tái bù huì jiāng nǐ rè ài de yóu xì xià jià .

To put it simply, the nature of online games means you can only hope the platform doesn't take down the games you love.

少数派Jul 2026

尸体没有拖拽的痕迹,全身很干净,并且被摆成了祈祷的姿势。

shī tǐ méi yǒu tuō zhuāi de hén jì , quán shēn hěn gān jìng , bìng qiě bèi bǎi chéng le qí dǎo de zī shì .

There were no signs that the body had been dragged; it was clean all over and had been arranged in a praying position.

爱范儿Jul 2026

员工偷偷在用,IT 部门装作没看见,法务在祈祷别出事。

yuán gōng tōu tōu zài yòng , I T bù mén zhuāng zuò méi kàn jiàn , fǎ wù zài qí dǎo bié chū shì .

Employees are using it on the sly, the IT department is turning a blind eye, and the legal department is praying nothing goes wrong.

爱范儿May 2026

只能在心里默默“作法”,祈祷它再一次重置。

zhī néng zài xīn lǐ mò mò zuò fǎ , qí dǎo tā zài yī cì chóng zhì .

All I can do is silently "work my magic" in my heart and pray that it resets again.

马来西亚诗华日报新闻网Mar 2026

汶莱渣打银行以追思祈祷与社区服务迎接斋月

汶 莱 zhā dǎ yín háng yǐ zhuī sī qí dǎo yǔ shè qū fú wù yíng jiē 斋 yuè

Standard Chartered Bank Brunei Marks Ramadan with Reflection, Prayer, and Community Service

Tatoeba

他每天祈祷好几次。

Tā měitiān qídǎo hǎojǐ cì.

He prays several times a day.

Tatoeba

我们都跪了下来祈祷。

Wǒmen dōu guì le xiàlai qídǎo.

We all knelt down to pray.

Tatoeba

我们全体为日本祈祷。

Wǒmen quántǐ wèi Rìběn qídǎo.

We're all praying for Japan.

Tatoeba

今天是星期五,所以我们需要祷告。

Jīntiān shì Xīngqīwǔ, suǒyǐ wǒmen xūyào dǎogào.

It's Friday, and so we have to perform our prayers.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 礻 (spirit) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced dǎo

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 祷 (dǎo) mean in Chinese?
祷 (dǎo) primarily means "prayer." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2399 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 祷 and 筹?
祷 (dǎo) and 筹 (chóu) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 礻 vs 竹 (same 寿 component).
How many strokes does 祷 have?
祷 is written with 11 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 祷?
The radical associated with 祷 is 礻 (spirit). This radical appears in many characters related to spirit.
What are the components of 祷?
祷 is composed of: 礻 (semantic), 寿 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰礻寿 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 祷?
Common words with 祷 include: 祈祷 (qí dǎo, "to pray"); 祷告 (dǎo gào, "to pray"); 祷文 (dǎo wén, "litany (text of a prayer)"); 默祷 (mò dǎo, "silent prayer"); 主祷文 (zhǔ dǎo wén, "Lord's Prayer"). There are over 16 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 祷 (dǎo)?
Several characters share the pronunciation dǎo: 到 (to reach), 道 (road, way), 导 (to transmit), 倒 (to fall, to invert), and 2 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 祷 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 祷 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 祷 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear spoken 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.