扩 (kuò): to expand

扩 (kuò) is a Chinese character meaning “to expand.” Classified as HSK Level 5 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 扌 (phonetic) and 广 (semantic). It ranks #1050 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 扩 wide. 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 expand

Etymology & Origin

扩

pictophoneticwide

Decomposition: ⿰扌广 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6

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

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with 扩

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
扩大verbkuò dàto expand5
扩展verbkuò zhǎnto extend6

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
扩散verbkuò sànto spread
扩张verbkuò zhāngexpansion
扩音器nounkuò yīn qìmegaphone
扩充verbkuò chōngto expand
扩建verbkuò jiànto extend (a building, an airport runway etc)
扩大化verbkuò dà huàto extend the scope
扩音机nounkuò yīn jīamplifier
扩容verbkuò róngto ramp up capacity
核扩散nounhé kuò sànnuclear proliferation
扩展名kuò zhǎn míng(file) extension (computing)
扩胸器kuò xiōng qìchest expander (exercise equipment)
扩大再生产verbkuò dà zài shēng chǎnto expand production
海底扩张说hǎi dǐ kuò zhāng shuōtheory of seafloor spreading (geology)
可扩展标记语言kě kuò zhǎn biāo jì yǔ yánextensible markup language (XML)
海底扩张hǎi dǐ kuò zhāngseafloor spreading (geology)
36
Total compounds
78
As first character
3
As last character
19
As middle character

扩 appears in 36 compound words: 78 as the first character, 3 as the last, and 19 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 扩 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

阅yuè
0.66215,858 co-occurrences
读dú
0.62115,862 co-occurrences
展zhǎn
0.52144,752 co-occurrences
张zhāng
0.50218,049 co-occurrences
充chōng
0.4775,118 co-occurrences
建jiàn
0.46522,174 co-occurrences
散sàn
0.4537,829 co-occurrences
大dà
0.43234,706 co-occurrences
断duàn
0.4272,412 co-occurrences
迅xùn
0.4021,258 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

海底扩张hǎi dǐ kuò zhāngHSK 5+

seafloor spreading (geology)

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

公司计划扩大生产规模,预计明年产能翻倍。

Gōngsī jìhuà kuòdà shēngchǎn guīmó, yùjì míngnián chǎnnéng fān bèi.

The company plans to expand production scale; capacity is expected to double next year.

鉅亨網 - 財經新聞、全球指數、股市報價、商品行情、理財投資Feb 2026

扩产也来不及!全球记忆体荒将成AI竞争关键...

kuò chǎn yě lái bù jí ! quán qiú jì yì tǐ huāng jiāng chéng A I jìng zhēng guān jiàn . . .

It's too late to expand production! The global memory shortage will become the key to AI competition...

三立新聞網Feb 2026

强生扩大高附加价值品项 接单动能曝光!

qiáng shēng kuò dà gāo fù jiā jià zhí pǐn xiàng jiē dān dòng néng pù guāng !

Johnson & Johnson expands high value-added items and exposes the momentum of receiving orders!

百度新闻Feb 2026

外媒:春节全球影响力持续扩大

wài méi : chūn jié quán qiú yǐng xiǎng lì chí xù kuò dà

Foreign media: The global influence of the Spring Festival continues to expand

百度新闻Feb 2026

“友谊”管道中断背后的博弈:能源战与欧盟扩员之争

yǒu yì guǎn dào zhōng duàn bēi hòu de bó yì néng yuán zhàn yú ōu méng kuò yuán zhī zhēng

The Game Behind the Disruption of the "Friendship" Pipeline: The Energy War and the EU Expansion Debate

百度新闻Feb 2026

欧股跌幅扩大,欧洲斯托克50指数跌0.86%

ōu gǔ diē fú kuò dà , ōu zhōu sī tuō kè zhǐ shǔ diē .

European shares extend losses, Euro Stoxx 50 down 0.86 percent

Tatoeba

癌细胞已经扩散到她的胃。

áixìbāo yǐjīng kuòsàn dào tā de wèi.

The cancer has spread to her stomach.

Tatoeba

他们扩阔了帝国的领土。

Tāmen kuò kuò le dìguó de lǐngtǔ.

They increased the territory of the empire.

Tatoeba

西面大楼的扩建在研究中。

Xīmiàn dàlóu de kuòjiàn zài yánjiū zhōng.

The expansion of the building's west end is being studied.

Tatoeba

最近,来自亚洲各国的进口额不断扩大。

Zuì jìn, láizì Yàzhōu gèguó de jìnkǒu é bù duàn kuòdà.

The imports from Asian countries have expanded recently.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 广 (wide) component

扌 Radical Family — Characters sharing the hand radical

Homophones — Characters pronounced kuò

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 扩 (kuò) mean in Chinese?
扩 (kuò) primarily means "to expand." It is classified as HSK Level 5, making it an advanced character. It ranks #1050 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 扩 have?
扩 is written with 6 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 扩?
The radical associated with 扩 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 扩?
扩 is composed of: 扌 (phonetic), 广 (semantic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌广 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 扩?
Common words with 扩 include: 扩大 (kuò dà, "to expand"); 扩散 (kuò sàn, "to spread"); 扩张 (kuò zhāng, "expansion"); 扩展 (kuò zhǎn, "to extend"); 扩音器 (kuò yīn qì, "megaphone"). There are over 36 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 扩 (kuò)?
Several characters share the pronunciation kuò: 括 ((bound form) to tie up), 阔 (wide, broad), 廓 ((bound form) extensive). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 扩 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
No. The simplified form is 扩 and the traditional form is 擴.

Practice writing 扩 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.