挎 (kuà): to carry (esp. slung over the arm, shoulder or side)

挎 (kuà) is a Chinese character meaning “to carry (esp. slung over the arm, shoulder or side).” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 扌 (semantic) and 夸 (phonetic). It ranks #2981 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 挎 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 carry (esp. slung over the arm, shoulder or side)

Etymology & Origin

挎

pictophonetichand

Decomposition: ⿰扌夸 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
挎包nounkuà bāosatchel
挎兜儿kuà dōu rerhua variant of 挎兜
挎斗kuà dǒusidecar
挎兜kuà dōusatchel
4
Total compounds
100
As first character
0
As last character
0
As middle character

挎 appears in 4 compound words: 100 as the first character, 0 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 挎 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

斜xié
0.52978 co-occurrences
肩jiān
0.42714 co-occurrences
枪qiāng
0.39616 co-occurrences
弹dàn
0.39120 co-occurrences
斗dǒu
0.38524 co-occurrences
包bāo
0.38384 co-occurrences
着zhe
0.38138 co-occurrences
摩mó
0.35416 co-occurrences
鼓gǔ
0.34710 co-occurrences
托tuō
0.33116 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

请挎出你的证件,配合我们的工作。

qǐng kuà 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

我以前基本上是不看单肩包的,最多也就是买买可以斜挎的款式。

wǒ yǐ qián jī běn shàng shì bù kàn dān jiān bāo de , zuì duō yě jiù shì mǎi mǎi kě yǐ xié kuà de kuǎn shì .

I used to pretty much never look at shoulder bags; at most, I’d buy styles that could be worn crossbody.

少数派May 2026

这套装用了个鞋盒大小的外包装寄来,内有套装纸袋、单肩小挎包、手机壳和贴纸。

zhè tào zhuāng yòng le gè xié hé dà xiǎo de wài bāo zhuāng jì lái , nèi yǒu tào zhuāng zhǐ dài , dān jiān xiǎo kuà bāo , shǒu jī qiào hé tiē zhǐ .

This set was shipped in a box about the size of a shoe box, containing a paper bag, a small shoulder bag, a phone case, and stickers.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 扌 (hand) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced kuà

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 挎 (kuà) mean in Chinese?
挎 (kuà) primarily means "to carry (esp. slung over the arm, shoulder or side)." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2981 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 挎 have?
挎 is written with 9 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 挎?
The radical associated with 挎 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 挎?
挎 is composed of: 扌 (semantic), 夸 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌夸 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 挎?
Common words with 挎 include: 挎包 (kuà bāo, "satchel"); 挎兜儿 (kuà dōu r, "erhua variant of 挎兜"); 挎斗 (kuà dǒu, "sidecar"); 挎兜 (kuà dōu, "satchel"). There are over 4 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 挎 (kuà)?
Several characters share the pronunciation kuà: 跨 (to stride, to cross), 垮 (to collapse (lit. or fig.)), 夸 (to boast). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 挎 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 挎 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 挎 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.