爹 (diē): dad

爹 (diē) is a Chinese character meaning “dad.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 父 (semantic) and 多 (phonetic). It ranks #1976 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 爹 father. Its radical form 父 (father) appears in many related characters such as 爷 (yé, grandpa), 爸 (bà, father), 父 (fù, father).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 父 father10 strokesFrequency #1976父 semantic多 phonetic

Definitions

  1. dad

Etymology & Origin

爹

pictophoneticfather

Decomposition: ⿱父多 (layout: top-bottom)

Components:父semantic多phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
老爹lǎo diē(dialect) father
爹地diē dìdaddy (loanword)
爹爹diē diedaddy
爹娘diē niáng(dialect) parents
阿爹ā diēdad
干爹gān diēadoptive father (traditional adoption, i.e. without legal ramifications)
喜当爹xǐ dāng diē(neologism c. 2012) (slang) to become a stepfather when one's partner turns out to be pregnant with a child she conce...
公爹gōng diēhusband's father
沙爹shā diēsatay (sauce)
姑爹gū diēhusband of father's sister
糖爹táng diē(slang) sugar daddy
沙爹酱shā diē jiàngsatay sauce
拼爹pīn diē(slang) to rely on one's father's wealth or prestige to get ahead
坑爹kēng diēto get one's father involved in a difficult situation
14
Total compounds
21
As first character
71
As last character
7
As middle character

爹 appears in 14 compound words: 21 as the first character, 71 as the last, and 7 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 爹 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

老lǎo
0.5527,338 co-occurrences
娘niáng
0.458744 co-occurrences
吹chuī
0.449546 co-occurrences
刁diāo
0.42084 co-occurrences
爸bà
0.401282 co-occurrences
吓hè
0.40066 co-occurrences
牛niú
0.398624 co-occurrences
猫māo
0.393162 co-occurrences
咱zán
0.39030 co-occurrences
胖pàng
0.36978 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

爹爹教我骑自行车，耐心地扶着车尾跑。

Diēdie jiāo wǒ qí zìxíngchē, nàixīn de fúzhe chē wěi pǎo.

Dad taught me to ride a bicycle, patiently holding the back of the bike as he ran.

新西兰中文先驱网Mar 2026

...都发生了关系! 生完娃之后懵圈了:谁是亲爹?!DNA都一样!

. . . dōu fā shēng le guān xì ! shēng wán wá zhī hòu 懵 juān le : shéi shì qīn diē ? ! D N A dōu yī yàng !

Tatoeba

爹地喜欢讲有趣的事。

Diēdì xǐhuan jiǎng yǒuqù de shì.

Daddy loves to say funny things.

Tatoeba

我一哥们儿他爹是变戏法的。

Wǒ yī gēmenr tā diē shì biànxìfǎ de.

I have a friend whose father is a magician.

Character Family

父 Radical Family — Characters sharing the father radical

爸bà爷yé父fù

Related Characters

爷yé爸bà父fù

Homophones — Characters pronounced diē

跌diē迭dié谍dié叠dié碟dié

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 爹 (diē) mean in Chinese?
爹 (diē) primarily means "dad." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #1976 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 爹 and 哆?
爹 (diē) and 哆 (duō) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 父 vs 口 (same 多 component).
How many strokes does 爹 have?
爹 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 爹?
The radical associated with 爹 is 父 (father). This radical appears in many characters related to father.
What are the components of 爹?
爹 is composed of: 父 (semantic), 多 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿱父多 with a top-bottom layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 爹?
Common words with 爹 include: 老爹 (lǎo diē, "(dialect) father"); 爹地 (diē dì, "daddy (loanword)"); 爹爹 (diē die, "daddy"); 爹娘 (diē niáng, "(dialect) parents"); 阿爹 (ā diē, "dad"). There are over 14 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 爹 (diē)?
Several characters share the pronunciation diē: 跌 (to fall), 迭 (alternately), 谍 (to spy), 叠 (to pile up), and 1 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 爹 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 爹 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 爹 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.