唠 (lào): to gossip, to chat (dialect)

唠 (lào) is a Chinese character meaning “to gossip.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 口 (semantic) and 劳 (phonetic). It ranks #2904 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 唠 mouth. Its radical form 口 (mouth) appears in many related characters such as 口 (kǒu, mouth), 叫 (jiào, to call, to be called), 右 (yòu, (bound form) right).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 口 mouth10 strokesFrequency #2904口 semantic劳 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to gossip
  2. to chat (dialect)

Etymology & Origin

唠

pictophoneticmouth

Decomposition: ⿰口劳 (layout: left-right)

Components:口semantic劳phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
唠叨láo daoto prattle
叨唠dāo laoto be chattersome
唠嗑lào kē(dialect) to chat
唠唠叨叨láo lao dāo dāoto chatter
4
Total compounds
75
As first character
25
As last character
0
As middle character

唠 appears in 4 compound words: 75 as the first character, 25 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 唠 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

叨dāo
0.827648 co-occurrences
咀jǔ
0.44930 co-occurrences
炮pào
0.33130 co-occurrences
环huán
0.32936 co-occurrences
爱ài
0.32330 co-occurrences
街jiē
0.31048 co-occurrences
们men
0.28636 co-occurrences
母mǔ
0.26630 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

唠唠叨叨láo lao dāo dāoHSK 7+

to chatter; to babble

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他唠干舌燥地讲了两个小时，终于说服了大家。

tā láo gān jī zào dì jiǎng le liǎng gě xiǎo shí , zhōng yú shuō fú le dà jiā .

He talked until he was hoarse for two hours, finally convincing everyone.

Tatoeba

别唠叨！我需要学习。

Bié láodao! wǒ xūyào xuéxí.

Don't chatter! I have to study.

Tatoeba

我并不想唠叨你。

Wǒ bìngbù xiǎng láodao nǐ.

I don't mean to nag you.

Character Family

口 Radical Family — Characters sharing the mouth radical

啊a哎āi哀āi唉āi叭bā吧ba哺bǔ嘈cáo唱chàng嘲cháo

Related Characters

口kǒu叫jiào右yòu号hào吃chī同tóng名míng后hòu吗ma吧ba

Homophones — Characters pronounced lào

捞lāo涝lào劳láo牢láo老lǎo姥lǎo潦lǎo络lào

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 唠 (lào) mean in Chinese?
唠 (lào) primarily means "to gossip." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2904 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 唠 have?
唠 is written with 10 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 唠?
The radical associated with 唠 is 口 (mouth). This radical appears in many characters related to mouth.
What are the components of 唠?
唠 is composed of: 口 (semantic), 劳 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰口劳 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 唠?
Common words with 唠 include: 唠叨 (láo dao, "to prattle"); 叨唠 (dāo lao, "to be chattersome"); 唠嗑 (lào kē, "(dialect) to chat"); 唠唠叨叨 (láo lao dāo dāo, "to chatter"). There are over 4 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 唠 (lào)?
Several characters share the pronunciation lào: 捞 (to fish up), 涝 (flooded), 劳 ((bound form) to toil), 牢 (firm), and 4 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 唠 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 唠 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 唠 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.