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).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 扌 hand7 strokesFrequency #2985扌 semantic区 phonetic

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)

Components:扌semantic区phonetic

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kōu mén(dialect) stingy
抠字眼kōu zì yǎnto be fastidious about phrasing, diction, or choice of words
抠门儿kōu mén rerhua form of 摳門|抠门[kou1 men2]
抠字眼儿kōu zì yǎn rerhua variant of 摳字眼|抠字眼[kou1 zi4 yan3]
老抠lǎo kōupenny-pincher
抠图kōu tú(image processing) to extract a foreground object from its background
抠脚kōu jiǎoto scratch one's foot
7
Total compounds
86
As first character
14
As last character
0
As middle character

抠 appears in 7 compound words: 86 as the first character, 14 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
0.43248 co-occurrences
底de
0.398120 co-occurrences
门mén
0.373102 co-occurrences
翻fān
0.33530 co-occurrences
像xiàng
0.30842 co-occurrences
则zé
0.30330 co-occurrences
图tú
0.29230 co-occurrences
对duì
0.28760 co-occurrences
去qù
0.28036 co-occurrences
机jī
0.27136 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.

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

扌 Radical Family — Characters sharing the hand radical

挨āi按àn扒bā拔bá把bǎ摆bǎi扳bān搬bān扮bàn拌bàn

Related Characters

手shǒu打dǎ找zhǎo拿ná才cái护hù报bào拉lā挺tǐng换huàn

Homophones — Characters pronounced kōu

口kǒu扣kòu

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, "(dialect) 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[kou1 men2]"); 抠字眼儿 (kōu zì yǎn r, "erhua variant of 摳字眼|抠字眼[kou1 zi4 yan3]"); 老抠 (lǎo kōu, "penny-pincher"). There are over 7 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

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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.