凋 (diāo): withered

凋 (diāo) is a Chinese character meaning “withered.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 冫 (semantic) and 周 (phonetic). It ranks #3004 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 凋 ice. Its radical form 冫 (ice) appears in many related characters such as 冷 (lěng, cold), 准 (zhǔn, to allow), 决 (jué, to decide).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 冫 ice10 strokesFrequency #3004冫 semantic周 phonetic

Definitions

  1. withered

Etymology & Origin

凋

pictophoneticice

Decomposition: ⿰冫周 (layout: left-right)

Components:冫semantic周phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
凋谢diāo xièto wither
凋零diāo língwithered
凋落diāo luòto wither (and drop off)
民生凋敝mín shēng diāo bìthe people's livelihood is reduced to destitution (idiom)
凋敝diāo bìimpoverished
5
Total compounds
80
As first character
0
As last character
20
As middle character

凋 appears in 5 compound words: 80 as the first character, 0 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 凋 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

萎wěi
0.599672 co-occurrences
零líng
0.5612,748 co-occurrences
胞bāo
0.5552,724 co-occurrences
亡wáng
0.5384,296 co-occurrences
细xì
0.5061,500 co-occurrences
枯kū
0.418108 co-occurrences
弊bì
0.410126 co-occurrences
诱yòu
0.400102 co-occurrences
谢xiè
0.396312 co-occurrences
蔽bì
0.38690 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

民生凋敝mín shēng diāo bìHSK 7+

the people's livelihood is reduced to destitution (idiom); a time of famine and impoverishment

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

凋字在日常生活中使用频率较低。

diāo zì zài rì cháng shēng huó zhōng shǐ yòng pín lǜ jiào dī .

The character "凋" is not used very often in everyday life.

Character Family

冫 Radical Family — Characters sharing the ice radical

冲chōng凑còu冻dòng减jiǎn净jìng冷lěng凉liáng凌líng凝níng凄qī

Related Characters

冷lěng准zhǔn决jué况kuàng减jiǎn凑còu净jìng冬dōng凉liáng冰bīng

Homophones — Characters pronounced diāo

雕diāo

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 凋 (diāo) mean in Chinese?
凋 (diāo) primarily means "withered." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #3004 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 凋 and 绸?
凋 (diāo) and 绸 (chóu) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 冫 vs 纟 (same 周 component).
How many strokes does 凋 have?
凋 is written with 10 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 凋?
The radical associated with 凋 is 冫 (ice). This radical appears in many characters related to ice.
What are the components of 凋?
凋 is composed of: 冫 (semantic), 周 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰冫周 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 凋?
Common words with 凋 include: 凋谢 (diāo xiè, "to wither"); 凋零 (diāo líng, "withered"); 凋落 (diāo luò, "to wither (and drop off)"); 民生凋敝 (mín shēng diāo bì, "the people's livelihood is reduced to destitution (idiom)"); 凋敝 (diāo bì, "impoverished"). There are over 5 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 凋 (diāo)?
Several characters share the pronunciation diāo: 雕 (to carve). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 凋 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 凋 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

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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.