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).
Definitions
- to dig
- to pick
- to scratch (with a finger or sth pointed)
- to carve
- to cut
- to study meticulously
Etymology & Origin
Stroke Order
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
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 抠门adjective | kōu mén | (coll.) stingy |
| 抠字眼verb | kōu zì yǎn | to be fastidious about phrasing, diction, or choice of words |
| 抠门儿adjective | kōu mén r | erhua form of 摳門|抠门 |
| 抠字眼儿verb | kōu zì yǎn r | erhua variant of 摳字眼|抠字眼 |
| 老抠 | lǎo kōu | penny-pincher |
| 抠图verb | kōu tú | (image processing) to extract a foreground object from its background |
| 抠脚 | kōu jiǎo | to scratch one's foot |
| 抠抠搜搜 | kōu kou sōu sōu | see 摳搜|抠搜 |
| 抠搜 | kōu sou | (coll.) stingy |
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.
Example Sentences
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Frequently Asked Questions
What does 抠 (kōu) mean in Chinese?
What's the difference between 抠 and 驱?
How many strokes does 抠 have?
What is the radical of 抠?
What are the components of 抠?
What are common words containing 抠?
What characters sound the same as 抠 (kōu)?
Is 抠 the same in 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.