(diāo): artful, wicked

(diāo) is a Chinese character meaning “artful.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), with radical (knife). It ranks #2947 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: knife2 strokesFrequency #2947

Definitions

  1. artful
  2. wicked

Stroke Order

1
2

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
diāo nànto be hard on sb
diāo zuāncrafty
diāo mín(derogatory) unruly people
bǎi bān diāo nàn(idiom) to put up innumerable obstacles
fàng diāoto act wickedly
shí diāo bǎiasparagus
diāo dǒusoldier's copper saucepan, used for cooking food by day and for sounding the night watches during the hours of darkne...
diāo fùshrew
diāo huáartful
diāo hàncunning and fierce
diāo máncrafty and unruly
11
Total compounds
73
As first character
9
As last character
18
As middle character

appears in 11 compound words: 73 as the first character, 9 as the last, and 18 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.

mán
0.526540 co-occurrences
nán
0.4451,132 co-occurrences
zuān
0.427180 co-occurrences
diē
0.42084 co-occurrences
0.40584 co-occurrences
qiào
0.39154 co-occurrences
huá
0.38236 co-occurrences
wán
0.37142 co-occurrences
fāng
0.370306 co-occurrences
shù
0.36054 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

bǎibān diāonànHSK 7+

to create innumerable obstacles; to make things difficult for; to create obstructions of every description

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

字在不同的语境中有不同的用法。

diāo zì zài bù tóng de yǔ jìng zhōng yǒu bù tóng de yòng fǎ .

The character "刁" has different usages in different contexts.

UdnnewsindexMar 2026

怀孕待产交接被难 女秘书气炸放火烧店赔百万换和解

huái yùn dài chǎn jiāo jiē bèi diāo nán nǚ mì shū qì zhà fàng huǒ shāo diàn péi bǎi wàn huàn hé jiě

Pregnant Secretary Faces Harassment During Handover; Enraged, She Sets Fire to Store, Pays $1 Million to Settle

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

游欧吃素很难搞?奥客难导游被骂翻 达人曝:“这几国”素食超友...

yóu ōu chī sù hěn nán gǎo ? ào kè diāo nán dǎo yóu bèi mà fān dá rén pù : zhè jī guó sù shí chāo yǒu . . .

Is it difficult to travel to Europe and be a vegetarian? The tour guide was scolded and revealed: "These countries" vegetarian super friends...

Tatoeba

澳洲的考试方式并不是为了难受测者。

àozhōu de kǎoshì fāngshì bìngbù shì wèile diāonàn shòu cè zhě.

The method used for tests in Australia is not meant to be difficult for the people sitting them.

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced diāo

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 刁 (diāo) mean in Chinese?
刁 (diāo) primarily means "artful." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2947 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 刁 have?
刁 is written with 2 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 刁?
The radical associated with 刁 is 刂 (knife). This radical appears in many characters related to knife.
What are common words containing 刁?
Common words with 刁 include: 刁难 (diāo nàn, "to be hard on sb"); 刁钻 (diāo zuān, "crafty"); 刁民 (diāo mín, "(derogatory) unruly people"); 百般刁难 (bǎi bān diāo nàn, "(idiom) to put up innumerable obstacles"); 放刁 (fàng diāo, "to act wickedly"). There are over 11 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 刁 (diāo)?
Several characters share the pronunciation diāo: 叼 (to hold with one's mouth (as a smoker with a cigarette or a dog with a bone)), 雕 (to carve), 吊 (to suspend), 钓 (to fish), and 2 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 刁 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 刁 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.