俘 (fú): to take prisoner, prisoner of war

俘 (fú) is a Chinese character meaning “to take prisoner.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 亻 (semantic) and 孚 (phonetic). It ranks #2025 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 俘 person. Its radical form 亻 (person) appears in many related characters such as 人 (rén, person), 什 (shén, what), 今 (jīn, now).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 亻 person9 strokesFrequency #2025亻 semantic孚 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to take prisoner
  2. prisoner of war

Etymology & Origin

俘

pictophoneticperson

Decomposition: ⿰亻孚 (layout: left-right)

Components:亻semantic孚phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
俘虏fú lǔcaptive
战俘zhàn fúprisoner of war
俘获fú huòto capture (enemy property or personnel)
中子俘获zhōng zǐ fú huòneutron capture
伤俘shāng fúwounded and captured
捕俘bǔ fúto capture enemy personnel (for intelligence purposes)
6
Total compounds
33
As first character
50
As last character
17
As middle character

俘 appears in 6 compound words: 33 as the first character, 50 as the last, and 17 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 俘 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

虏lǔ
0.81033,462 co-occurrences
被bèi
0.51977,946 co-occurrences
战zhàn
0.50125,728 co-occurrences
获huò
0.46815,078 co-occurrences
斩zhǎn
0.4431,230 co-occurrences
毙bì
0.439684 co-occurrences
押yā
0.4081,800 co-occurrences
敌dí
0.4002,178 co-occurrences
营yíng
0.3814,500 co-occurrences
军jūn
0.37812,444 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

作为俘民，我们有责任保护环境。

zuò wéi fú mín , wǒ men yǒu zé rèn bǎo hù huán jìng .

As captives, we have a responsibility to protect the environment.

NewtalkApr 2026

...F-15E飞官疑遭“山洞设局”活捉 伊曝俘虏照却破绽百出...

. . . F 1 5 E fēi guān yí zāo shān dòng shè jú huó zhuō yī pù fú lǔ zhào què pò zhàn bǎi chū . . .

Character Family

亻 Radical Family — Characters sharing the person radical

傲ào伴bàn保bǎo伯bó侧cè偿cháng仇qiú储chǔ传chuán伺sì

Related Characters

人rén什shén今jīn介jiè从cóng他tā们men休xiū会huì住zhù

Homophones — Characters pronounced fú

浮fú夫fū服fú符fú福fú府fǔ父fù付fù负fù

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 俘 (fú) mean in Chinese?
俘 (fú) primarily means "to take prisoner." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2025 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 俘 and 和?
俘 (fú) and 和 (hé) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 俘 (war) vs 和 (peace).
How many strokes does 俘 have?
俘 is written with 9 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 俘?
The radical associated with 俘 is 亻 (person). This radical appears in many characters related to person.
What are the components of 俘?
俘 is composed of: 亻 (semantic), 孚 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰亻孚 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 俘?
Common words with 俘 include: 俘虏 (fú lǔ, "captive"); 战俘 (zhàn fú, "prisoner of war"); 俘获 (fú huò, "to capture (enemy property or personnel)"); 中子俘获 (zhōng zǐ fú huò, "neutron capture"); 伤俘 (shāng fú, "wounded and captured"). There are over 6 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 俘 (fú)?
Several characters share the pronunciation fú: 浮 (to float), 夫 (husband), 服 (clothes, serve), 符 (mark), and 5 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 俘 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 俘 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.