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), 状 (zhuàng, (bound form) form).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. crafty
  2. cunning
  3. sly

Etymology & Origin

狡

pictophoneticdog

Decomposition: ⿰犭交 (layout: left-right)

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adjectivejiǎo huácrafty
狡诈adjectivejiǎo zhàcrafty
狡辩verbjiǎo biànto deflect blame from oneself with a dishonest story
狡黠adjectivejiǎo xiácrafty
狡滑jiǎo huávariant of 狡猾
狡狯adjectivejiǎo kuài(literary) crafty
狡兔死,走狗烹jiǎo tù sǐ , zǒu gǒu pēngsee 兔死狗烹
狡兔三窟phrasejiǎo tù sān kūlit. a crafty rabbit has three burrows
狡赖verbjiǎo 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
0.9092,548 co-occurrences
诈zhà
0.598366 co-occurrences
奸jiān
0.511248 co-occurrences
兔tù
0.477186 co-occurrences
狠hěn
0.44554 co-occurrences
凶xiōng
0.43794 co-occurrences
婪lán
0.43426 co-occurrences
阴yīn
0.424140 co-occurrences
慎shèn
0.39686 co-occurrences
鄙bǐ
0.39522 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.

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 mischievous—not very 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 jiǎo

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"). There are over 10 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 狡 (jiǎo)?
Several characters share the pronunciation jiǎo: 较 (compare, relatively), 郊 (suburbs), 绞 (to twist (strands into a thread)), 饺 (dumpling), and 1 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

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.