狡 (jiǎo): crafty, cunning, sly

狡 (jiǎo) is a Chinese character meaning “crafty.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 犭 (semantic) and 交 (phonetic). It ranks #2540 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 狡 dog. Its radical form 犭 (dog) appears in many related characters such as 狗 (gǒu, dog), 猫 (māo, cat (CL:隻|只[zhi1])), 状 (zhuàng, (bound form) form).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 犭 dog9 strokesFrequency #2540犭 semantic交 phonetic

Definitions

  1. crafty
  2. cunning
  3. sly

Etymology & Origin

狡

pictophoneticdog

Decomposition: ⿰犭交 (layout: left-right)

Components:犭semantic交phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Practice writing 狡 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jiǎo huácrafty
狡诈jiǎo zhàcrafty
狡辩jiǎo biànto deflect blame from oneself with a dishonest story
狡黠jiǎo xiácrafty
狡滑jiǎo huávariant of 狡猾[jiao3 hua2]
狡狯jiǎo kuài(literary) crafty
狡兔死走狗烹jiǎo tù sǐ zǒu gǒu pēngsee 兔死狗烹[tu4 si3 gou3 peng1]
狡兔三窟jiǎo tù sān kūlit. a crafty rabbit has three burrows
狡赖jiǎo làito deny (through sophism)
奸狡jiān jiǎodevious
10
Total compounds
90
As first character
10
As last character
0
As middle character

狡 appears in 10 compound words: 90 as the first character, 10 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 狡 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

猾huá
0.8907,624 co-occurrences
诈zhà
0.6071,098 co-occurrences
奸jiān
0.519744 co-occurrences
兔tù
0.484558 co-occurrences
狠hěn
0.452162 co-occurrences
凶xiōng
0.443282 co-occurrences
婪lán
0.44078 co-occurrences
阴yīn
0.430420 co-occurrences
慎shèn
0.402258 co-occurrences
鄙bǐ
0.40166 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

狡兔三窟jiǎotùsānkūHSK 7+

a crafty person has more than one hideout; a sly individual has more than one plan to fall back on

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

学习狡字需要反复练习，才能写得工整。

xué xí jiǎo zì xū yāo fǎn fù liàn xí , cái néng xiě dé gōng zhěng .

Mastering the character "狡" requires repeated practice to write it neatly.

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

犭 Radical Family — Characters sharing the dog radical

狈bèi猜cāi猖chāng独dú犯fàn狗gǒu狠hěn猴hóu狐hú猾huá

Related Characters

狗gǒu猫māo状zhuàng猪zhū独dú犹yóu狂kuáng猜cāi献xiàn猴hóu

Homophones — Characters pronounced jiǎo

郊jiāo绞jiǎo饺jiǎo较jiào校jiào交jiāo胶jiāo

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 狡 (jiǎo) mean in Chinese?
狡 (jiǎo) primarily means "crafty." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2540 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 狡 and 效?
狡 (jiǎo) and 效 (xiào) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 犭 vs 攵 (same 交 component).
How many strokes does 狡 have?
狡 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 狡?
The radical associated with 狡 is 犭 (dog). This radical appears in many characters related to dog.
What are the components of 狡?
狡 is composed of: 犭 (semantic), 交 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰犭交 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 狡?
Common words with 狡 include: 狡猾 (jiǎo huá, "crafty"); 狡诈 (jiǎo zhà, "crafty"); 狡辩 (jiǎo biàn, "to deflect blame from oneself with a dishonest story"); 狡黠 (jiǎo xiá, "crafty"); 狡滑 (jiǎo huá, "variant of 狡猾[jiao3 hua2]"). There are over 10 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 狡 (jiǎo)?
Several characters share the pronunciation jiǎo: 郊 (suburbs), 绞 (to twist (strands into a thread)), 饺 (dumpling), 较 (compare, relatively), and 3 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 狡 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 狡 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 狡 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.