蹬 (dēng): to step on, to tread on, to put on, to wear (shoes, trousers etc), (slang) to dump (sb)

蹬 (dēng) is a Chinese character meaning “to step on.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 足 (semantic) and 登 (phonetic). It ranks #2885 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 蹬 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 #2885足 semantic登 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to step on
  2. to tread on
  3. to put on
  4. to wear (shoes, trousers etc)
  5. (slang) to dump (sb)

Etymology & Origin

蹬

pictophoneticfoot

Decomposition: ⿰足登 (layout: left-right)

Components:足semantic登phonetic

Stroke Order

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

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
蹬腿dēng tuǐto kick one's legs
蹬鼻子上脸dēng bí zi shàng liǎnlit. to climb all over sb
蹬子dēng zipedal
马蹬mǎ dèngerroneous variant of 馬鐙|马镫[ma3 deng4]
蹬脚dēng jiǎoto stamp one's foot
脚蹬jiǎo dēngpedal
蹭蹬cèng dèng(literary) to encounter setbacks
7
Total compounds
57
As first character
43
As last character
0
As middle character

蹬 appears in 7 compound words: 57 as the first character, 43 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 蹬 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

袜wà
0.620246 co-occurrences
蹭cèng
0.61284 co-occurrences
脚jiǎo
0.505390 co-occurrences
踩cǎi
0.48078 co-occurrences
踏tà
0.479204 co-occurrences
靴xuē
0.47484 co-occurrences
跳tiào
0.463366 co-occurrences
腿tuǐ
0.458156 co-occurrences
踢tī
0.40466 co-occurrences
乌wū
0.396180 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

老师教我们蹬字的发音和笔顺。

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

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

Character Family

足 Radical Family — Characters sharing the foot radical

蹦bèng踩cǎi蹭cèng踹chuài蹈dǎo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 dēng

邓dèng凳dèng瞪dèng灯dēng登dēng等děng

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 蹬 (dēng) mean in Chinese?
蹬 (dēng) primarily means "to step on." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2885 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 蹬 and 澄?
蹬 (dēng) and 澄 (chéng) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 足 vs 氵 (same 登 component).
How many strokes does 蹬 have?
蹬 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 蹬?
The radical associated with 蹬 is 足 (foot). This radical appears in many characters related to foot.
What are the components of 蹬?
蹬 is composed of: 足 (semantic), 登 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰足登 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 蹬?
Common words with 蹬 include: 蹬腿 (dēng tuǐ, "to kick one's legs"); 蹬鼻子上脸 (dēng bí zi shàng liǎn, "lit. to climb all over sb"); 蹬子 (dēng zi, "pedal"); 马蹬 (mǎ dèng, "erroneous variant of 馬鐙|马镫[ma3 deng4]"); 蹬脚 (dēng jiǎo, "to stamp one's foot"). There are over 7 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 蹬 (dēng)?
Several characters share the pronunciation dēng: 邓 (surname Deng), 凳 (bench), 瞪 (to stare), 灯 (lamp, light), and 2 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 蹬 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 蹬 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 蹬 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.