抠 (kōu): to dig, to pick, to scratch (with a finger or sth pointed), to carve, to cut, to study meticulously

抠 (kōu) is a Chinese character meaning “to dig.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 扌 (semantic) and 区 (phonetic). It ranks #2985 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 抠 hand. Its radical form 扌 (hand) appears in many related characters such as 手 (shǒu, hand), 打 (dǎ, hit, make), 找 (zhǎo, to look for).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. to dig
  2. to pick
  3. to scratch (with a finger or sth pointed)
  4. to carve
  5. to cut
  6. to study meticulously

Etymology & Origin

抠

pictophonetichand

Decomposition: ⿰扌区 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
抠门adjectivekōu mén(coll.) stingy
抠字眼verbkōu zì yǎnto be fastidious about phrasing, diction, or choice of words
抠门儿adjectivekōu mén rerhua form of 摳門|抠门
抠字眼儿verbkōu zì yǎn rerhua variant of 摳字眼|抠字眼
老抠lǎo kōupenny-pincher
抠图verbkōu tú(image processing) to extract a foreground object from its background
抠脚kōu jiǎoto scratch one's foot
抠抠搜搜kōu kou sōu sōusee 摳搜|抠搜
抠搜kōu sou(coll.) stingy
9
Total compounds
89
As first character
11
As last character
0
As middle character

抠 appears in 9 compound words: 89 as the first character, 11 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 抠 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

鼻bí
0.42616 co-occurrences
底dǐ
0.39240 co-occurrences
门mén
0.36834 co-occurrences
翻fān
0.33010 co-occurrences
像xiàng
0.30314 co-occurrences
出chū
0.19619 co-occurrences
为wéi
0.19413 co-occurrences
用yòng
0.19010 co-occurrences
的de
0.15043 co-occurrences
一yī
0.12010 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

请抠出你的证件,配合我们的工作。

qǐng kōu chū nǐ de zhèng jiàn , pèi gě wǒ men de gōng zuò .

Please present your identification and cooperate with our work.

少数派Jul 2026

虽然现在哪里都能租到充电宝,但真到出门的时候,还是经常因为懒惰或者抠门而没有及时租。

suī rán xiàn zài nǎ lǐ dōu néng zū dào chōng diàn bǎo , dàn zhēn dào chū mén de shí hòu , hái shì jīng cháng yīn wéi lǎn duò huò zhě kōu mén ér méi yǒu jí shí zū .

Although you can rent power banks just about anywhere these days, when it actually comes time to head out, I often end up not renting one in time because I’m too lazy or too cheap.

中国新闻网·文化Jul 2026

教练特别负责,逐个动作抠细节,帮我们打下了扎实功底。

jiào liàn tè bié fù zé , zhú gè dòng zuò kōu xì jié , bāng wǒ men dǎ xià le zhā shí gōng de .

The coach was exceptionally dedicated, paying close attention to the details of each movement and helping us build a solid foundation.

少数派Jul 2026

尝试了好多角度,确实难以抠出 降噪这块说实话让我挺意外的。

cháng shì le hǎo duō jiǎo dù , què shí nán yǐ kōu chū jiàng zào zhè kuài shuō shí huà ràng wǒ tǐng yì wài de .

I tried a lot of different angles, and it really is hard to isolate the noise—to be honest, that part surprised me quite a bit.

爱范儿Jun 2026

小白:我们是鼓励,订阅最新 AI 工具,公司都报销,也暂时没设上限让大家去抠成本。

xiǎo bái : wǒ men shì gǔ lì , dìng yuè zuì xīn A I gōng jù , gōng sī dōu bào xiāo , yě zàn shí méi shè shàng xiàn ràng dà jiā qù kōu chéng běn .

Xiaobai: We encourage you to subscribe to the latest AI tools; the company will reimburse the costs, and for now, we haven’t set a limit, so feel free to use them without worrying about costs.

SmzdmMar 2026

为啥好多人开空调抠抠搜搜的?简单一招,每天用电6.17降到...

wéi 啥 hǎo duō rén kāi kōng diào kōu kōu sōu sōu de ? jiǎn dān yī zhāo , měi tiān yòng diàn 6 . 1 7 jiàng dào . . .

Why do so many people use their air conditioners so sparingly? With one simple trick, you can reduce your daily electricity bill from $6.17 to...

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 扌 (hand) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced kōu

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 抠 (kōu) mean in Chinese?
抠 (kōu) primarily means "to dig." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2985 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 抠 and 驱?
抠 (kōu) and 驱 (qū) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 扌 vs 马 (same 区 component).
How many strokes does 抠 have?
抠 is written with 7 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 抠?
The radical associated with 抠 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 抠?
抠 is composed of: 扌 (semantic), 区 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌区 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 抠?
Common words with 抠 include: 抠门 (kōu mén, "(coll.) stingy"); 抠字眼 (kōu zì yǎn, "to be fastidious about phrasing, diction, or choice of words"); 抠门儿 (kōu mén r, "erhua form of 摳門|抠门"); 抠字眼儿 (kōu zì yǎn r, "erhua variant of 摳字眼|抠字眼"); 老抠 (lǎo kōu, "penny-pincher"). There are over 9 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 抠 (kōu)?
Several characters share the pronunciation kōu: 口 (mouth), 扣 (to fasten). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 抠 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 抠 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 抠 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.