(): to bind, to tie, Taiwan pr.

() is a Chinese character meaning “to bind.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (semantic) and (phonetic). It ranks #2470 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, thread. Its radical form (silk) appears in many related characters such as (, to connect), (lěi, to accumulate), (shào, to continue).

Native pronunciation

Definitions

  1. to bind
  2. to tie
  3. Taiwan pr.

Etymology & Origin

pictophoneticthread

Decomposition: ⿰纟尃 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13

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
shù fùto bind
zuò jiǎn zì fùto spin a cocoon around oneself (idiom)
shǒu wú fù jī zhī lìlit. lacking the strength even to truss a chicken (saying)
zì fù shǒu jiǎoto bind oneself hand and foot
fù jī zhī lìlit. the strength to truss a chicken (idiom)
shù shǒu fù jiǎosee 束手束腳|束手束脚[shu4 shou3 shu4 jiao3]
zào jiǎn zì fùto spin a cocoon around oneself (idiom)
tǔ sī zì fùto spin a cocoon around oneself (idiom)
fù shǒu fù jiǎo(idiom) to be bound by too many restrictions
diào zhuì fùstrappado bondage
tǎn fùto surrender after baring oneself to the waist and tying one's hands behind
bǎng fùto tie up
kǔn fùbondage
zōng fùpalm fiber
14
Total compounds
14
As first character
64
As last character
21
As middle character

appears in 14 compound words: 14 as the first character, 64 as the last, and 21 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.

shù
0.6209,234 co-occurrences
bǎng
0.548690 co-occurrences
zhèng
0.515168 co-occurrences
kǔn
0.452120 co-occurrences
tài
0.4451,044 co-occurrences
shéng
0.437156 co-occurrences
0.433276 co-occurrences
tuō
0.421408 co-occurrences
bǎi
0.38496 co-occurrences
jǐn
0.370198 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (5)

fù jī zhī lìHSK 7+

lit. the strength to truss a chicken (idiom); fig. slight physical strength

phrase
fù shǒu fù jiǎoHSK 7+

(idiom) to be bound by too many restrictions

phrase
tǔ sī zì fùHSK 7+

to spin a cocoon around oneself (idiom); enmeshed in a trap of one's own devising; hoist with his own petard

phrase
zìfùshǒujiǎoHSK 7+

to restrict oneself

phrase
zuòjiǎnzìfúHSK 7+

to act in a way that traps oneself or puts oneself in a difficult situation

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

字在不同的语境中有不同的用法。

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

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

Tatoeba

我想她想要的是束与支配。

Wǒ xiǎng tā xiǎngyào de shì shùfù yǔ zhīpèi.

I guess she's into bondage and domination.

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 缚 (fù) mean in Chinese?
缚 (fù) primarily means "to bind." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2470 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 缚 and 搏?
缚 (fù) and 搏 (bó) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 纟 vs 扌 (same 尃 component).
How many strokes does 缚 have?
缚 is written with 13 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 缚?
The radical associated with 缚 is 纟 (silk). This radical appears in many characters related to silk.
What are the components of 缚?
缚 is composed of: 纟 (semantic), 尃 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰纟尃 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 缚?
Common words with 缚 include: 束缚 (shù fù, "to bind"); 作茧自缚 (zuò jiǎn zì fù, "to spin a cocoon around oneself (idiom)"); 手无缚鸡之力 (shǒu wú fù jī zhī lì, "lit. lacking the strength even to truss a chicken (saying)"); 自缚手脚 (zì fù shǒu jiǎo, "to bind oneself hand and foot"); 缚鸡之力 (fù jī zhī lì, "lit. the strength to truss a chicken (idiom)"). There are over 14 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 缚 (fù)?
Several characters share the pronunciation fù: 夫 (husband), 服 (clothes, serve), 符 (mark), 福 (abbr. for Fujian province 福建省), and 3 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 缚 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 缚 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 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.