苛 (kē): severe, exacting

苛 (kē) is a Chinese character meaning “severe.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 艹 (semantic) and 可 (phonetic). It ranks #2795 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 苛 grass. Its radical form 艹 (grass) appears in many related characters such as 花 (huā, flower), 茶 (chá, tea), 菜 (cài, vegetable, dish).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 艹 grass8 strokesFrequency #2795艹 semantic可 phonetic

Definitions

  1. severe
  2. exacting

Etymology & Origin

苛

pictophoneticgrass

Decomposition: ⿱艹可 (layout: top-bottom)

Components:艹semantic可phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
苛刻kē kèharsh
苛求kē qiúdemanding
苛责kē zéto criticize harshly
苛捐杂税kē juān zá shuìexorbitant taxation (idiom)
苛性kē xìngcaustic (chemistry)
苛性钾kē xìng jiǎcaustic potash
苛性钠kē xìng nàcaustic soda
严苛yán kēsevere
蠲苛juān kēto remove an oppressive law, tax etc
苛捐kē juānexorbitant levies
10
Total compounds
80
As first character
20
As last character
0
As middle character

苛 appears in 10 compound words: 80 as the first character, 20 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 苛 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

刻kè
0.5726,672 co-occurrences
严yán
0.5223,035 co-occurrences
捐juān
0.4661,086 co-occurrences
税shuì
0.452792 co-occurrences
烦fán
0.423144 co-occurrences
虐nüè
0.416300 co-occurrences
敛liǎn
0.409102 co-occurrences
涤dí
0.40242 co-occurrences
杂zá
0.400648 co-occurrences
酷kù
0.384288 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

苛捐杂税kējuānzáshuìHSK 7+

exorbitant taxes

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

苛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 character "苛" has different usages in different contexts.

Tatoeba

我在慢慢习惯这苛刻的气候。

Wǒ zài mànmàn xíguàn zhè kēkè de qìhòu.

I am slowly adjusting to the harsh climate here.

Character Family

艹 Radical Family — Characters sharing the grass radical

蔼ǎi艾ài芭bā薄báo蔽bì菜cài苍cāng藏zàng草cǎo茶chá

Related Characters

花huā茶chá菜cài节jié英yīng草cǎo药yào蓝lán艺yì苦kǔ

Homophones — Characters pronounced kē

坷kē科kē棵kē颗kē磕kē可kě渴kě

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 苛 (kē) mean in Chinese?
苛 (kē) primarily means "severe." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2795 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 苛 and 河?
苛 (kē) and 河 (hé) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 艹 vs 氵 (same 可 component).
How many strokes does 苛 have?
苛 is written with 8 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 苛?
The radical associated with 苛 is 艹 (grass). This radical appears in many characters related to grass.
What are the components of 苛?
苛 is composed of: 艹 (semantic), 可 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿱艹可 with a top-bottom layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 苛?
Common words with 苛 include: 苛刻 (kē kè, "harsh"); 苛求 (kē qiú, "demanding"); 苛责 (kē zé, "to criticize harshly"); 苛捐杂税 (kē juān zá shuì, "exorbitant taxation (idiom)"); 苛性 (kē xìng, "caustic (chemistry)"). There are over 10 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 苛 (kē)?
Several characters share the pronunciation kē: 坷 (used in 坷垃[ke1 la1]), 科 (branch of study), 棵 (classifier for trees, cabbages, plants etc), 颗 (classifier for small spheres, pearls, corn grains, teeth, hearts, satellites etc), and 3 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 苛 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 苛 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 苛 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear native pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

Download on theApp StoreGet it onGoogle Play

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.