磕 (kē): to tap, to knock (against sth hard), to knock (mud from boots, ashes from a pipe etc)

磕 (kē) is a Chinese character meaning “to tap.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 石 (semantic) and 盍 (phonetic). It ranks #2740 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 磕 stone. Its radical form 石 (stone) appears in many related characters such as 确 (què, certain, true), 碗 (wǎn, bowl), 碰 (pèng, to touch, to bump).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 石 stone15 strokesFrequency #2740石 semantic盍 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to tap
  2. to knock (against sth hard)
  3. to knock (mud from boots, ashes from a pipe etc)

Etymology & Origin

磕

pictophoneticstone

Decomposition: ⿰石盍 (layout: left-right)

Components:石semantic盍phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
磕磕绊绊kē ke bàn bànbumpy (of a road)
磕头kē tóuto kowtow (traditional greeting, esp. to a superior, involving kneeling and pressing one's forehead to the ground)
磕碰kē pèngto knock against
死磕sǐ kē(coll.) to fight to the death
磕头如捣蒜kè tóu rú dǎo suànlit. to kowtow like grinding garlic (idiom)
磕磕巴巴kē kē bā bāstammering
磕膝盖kē xī gài(dialect) knee
磕糖kē táng(slang) to revel in the sight of one's favorite couple being affectionate
磕碜kē chen(dialect) ugly
磕磕kē kē(onom.) knocking
10
Total compounds
90
As first character
10
As last character
0
As middle character

磕 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 磕 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

绊bàn
0.663264 co-occurrences
跪guì
0.588312 co-occurrences
碰pèng
0.558540 co-occurrences
头tóu
0.5031,113 co-occurrences
膝xī
0.44366 co-occurrences
钱qián
0.398114 co-occurrences
歉qiàn
0.39260 co-occurrences
睡shuì
0.38366 co-occurrences
拜bài
0.356117 co-occurrences
笔bǐ
0.32930 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (2)

磕磕巴巴kēkebābāHSK 7+

to stutter; to stammer

phrase
磕磕绊绊kēkebànbànHSK 7+

rough; bumpy; (of a person) stumbling; tottering; doddering; tongue-tied; stuttering; stammering

adjective

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

磕字在不同的语境中有不同的用法。

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

The word "knock" has different usages in different contexts.

百度新闻Feb 2026

俄罗斯女婿给丈母娘磕头拜年:不是必须做,是我所能表..

é luó sī nǚ xù gěi zhàng mǔ niáng kē tóu bài nián : bù shì bì xū zuò , shì wǒ suǒ néng biǎo . .

The Russian son-in-law kowtowed to his mother-in-law for the New Year: It's not something I have to do, it's what I can do:

Tatoeba

他磕碎了下巴，掉了几颗牙。

Tā kē suì le xiàba, diào le jǐ kē yá.

He got a broken jaw and lost some teeth.

Character Family

石 Radical Family — Characters sharing the stone radical

碍ài磅bàng碑bēi础chǔ磁cí磋cuō礁jiāo砍kǎn矿kuàng碌lù

Related Characters

确què碗wǎn碰pèng石shí破pò础chǔ矿kuàng码mǎ研yán硕shuò

Homophones — Characters pronounced kē

苛kē科kē棵kē颗kē可kě渴kě克kè刻kè客kè课kè

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 磕 (kē) mean in Chinese?
磕 (kē) primarily means "to tap." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2740 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 磕 have?
磕 is written with 15 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 磕?
The radical associated with 磕 is 石 (stone). This radical appears in many characters related to stone.
What are the components of 磕?
磕 is composed of: 石 (semantic), 盍 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰石盍 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 磕?
Common words with 磕 include: 磕磕绊绊 (kē ke bàn bàn, "bumpy (of a road)"); 磕头 (kē tóu, "to kowtow (traditional greeting, esp. to a superior, involving kneeling and pressing one's forehead to the ground)"); 磕碰 (kē pèng, "to knock against"); 死磕 (sǐ kē, "(coll.) to fight to the death"); 磕头如捣蒜 (kè tóu rú dǎo suàn, "lit. to kowtow like grinding garlic (idiom)"). There are over 10 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 磕 (kē)?
Several characters share the pronunciation kē: 苛 (severe), 科 (branch of study), 棵 (classifier for trees, cabbages, plants etc), 颗 (classifier for small spheres, pearls, corn grains, teeth, hearts, satellites etc), and 6 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 磕 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 磕 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 磕 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.