猾 (huá): sly

猾 (huá) is a Chinese character meaning “sly.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 犭 (semantic) and 骨 (phonetic). It ranks #2786 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 猾 dog. Its radical form 犭 (dog) appears in many related characters such as 狗 (gǒu, dog), 猫 (māo, cat), 状 (zhuàng, (bound form) form).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. sly

Etymology & Origin

猾

pictophoneticdog

Decomposition: ⿰犭骨 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

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

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
狡猾adjectivejiǎo huácrafty
老奸巨猾phraselǎo jiān jù huácunning
油猾yóu huásly
奸猾adjectivejiān huátreacherous
4
Total compounds
0
As first character
100
As last character
0
As middle character

猾 appears in 4 compound words: 0 as the first character, 100 as the last, and 0 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 猾 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

狡jiǎo
0.9092,548 co-occurrences
奸jiān
0.577404 co-occurrences
婪lán
0.45226 co-occurrences
豪háo
0.438256 co-occurrences
吏lì
0.422118 co-occurrences
诈zhà
0.41028 co-occurrences
巨jù
0.388166 co-occurrences
狸lí
0.38424 co-occurrences
鄙bǐ
0.38314 co-occurrences
刁diāo
0.37712 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

老奸巨猾lǎojiānjùhuáHSK 7+

to be extremely cunning and crafty; to be a wily old fox; to be an old hand at trickery and deception

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

这个人很狡猾,说话总是半真半假。

Zhè gè rén hěn jiǎohuá, shuōhuà zǒngshì bàn zhēn bàn jiǎ.

This person is very cunning; his words are always half true and half false.

爱范儿Aug 2026

他说,滚,两面都让你说了,狡猾。

tā shuō , gǔn , liǎng miàn dōu ràng nǐ shuō le , jiǎo huá .

He said, “Get lost. You’ve had your say on both sides—you’re so sneaky.”

爱范儿Aug 2026

从厂商角度,这个发明十分巧妙;对于用户来说,钥匙卡却是令人困惑的狡猾行为。

cóng hǎn shāng jiǎo dù , zhè gè fā míng shí fēn qiǎo miào ; duì yú yòng hù lái shuō , yuè chí kǎ què shì lìng rén kùn huò de jiǎo huá háng wéi .

From the manufacturer's perspective, this invention is quite ingenious; for users, however, the key card is a confusing and underhanded tactic.

IT之家Jun 2026

每种载具都有不同的驾驶特性,可以让玩家施展出多样技能、狡猾诡计以及凶残策略。

měi zhǒng zài jù dōu yǒu bù tóng de jià shǐ tè xìng , kě yǐ ràng wán jiā shī zhǎn chū duō yàng jì néng , jiǎo huá guǐ jì yǐ jí xiōng cán cè lüè .

Each vehicle has its own unique handling characteristics, allowing players to execute a variety of skills, cunning tricks, and ruthless strategies.

爱范儿Apr 2026

普遍被描述为贪婪、狡猾、爱恶作剧,智力不高但很会算计小便宜。

pǔ biàn bèi miáo shù wéi tān lán , jiǎo huá , ài è zuò jù , zhì lì bù gāo dàn hěn huì suàn jì xiǎo biàn yí .

They are generally described as greedy, cunning, and prankish—not particularly intelligent, but very good at taking advantage of small opportunities.

Tatoeba

人们说,狐狸比其他动物要狡猾。

Rénmen shuō, húli bǐ qítā dòngwù yào jiǎohuá.

People say that the fox is more cunning than other animals.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 犭 (dog) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced huá

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 猾 (huá) mean in Chinese?
猾 (huá) primarily means "sly." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2786 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 猾 have?
猾 is written with 12 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 猾?
The radical associated with 猾 is 犭 (dog). This radical appears in many characters related to dog.
What are the components of 猾?
猾 is composed of: 犭 (semantic), 骨 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰犭骨 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 猾?
Common words with 猾 include: 狡猾 (jiǎo huá, "crafty"); 老奸巨猾 (lǎo jiān jù huá, "cunning"); 油猾 (yóu huá, "sly"); 奸猾 (jiān huá, "treacherous"). There are over 4 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 猾 (huá)?
Several characters share the pronunciation huá: 滑 (to slip), 话 (speech, words), 化 (to make into), 花 (flower), and 4 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 猾 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 猾 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 猾 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear spoken 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.