涝 (lào): flooded

涝 (lào) is a Chinese character meaning “flooded.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 氵 (semantic) and 劳 (phonetic). It ranks #2987 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 涝 water. Its radical form 氵 (water) appears in many related characters such as 水 (shuǐ, water), 汉 (hàn, Han ethnic group), 汽 (qì, steam).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 氵 water10 strokesFrequency #2987氵 semantic劳 phonetic

Definitions

  1. flooded

Etymology & Origin

涝

pictophoneticwater

Decomposition: ⿰氵劳 (layout: left-right)

Components:氵semantic劳phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
洪涝hóng làoflood
旱涝保收hàn lào bǎo shōuto provide a stable crop, regardless of drought or flood
内涝nèi làowaterlogged
排涝pái làoto drain flooded fields
抗涝kàng làodefenses against floods
5
Total compounds
0
As first character
80
As last character
20
As middle character

涝 appears in 5 compound words: 0 as the first character, 80 as the last, and 20 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 涝 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

洪hóng
0.6174,752 co-occurrences
灾zāi
0.6142,298 co-occurrences
旱hàn
0.5871,056 co-occurrences
害hài
0.4971,980 co-occurrences
雹báo
0.47654 co-occurrences
泥ní
0.471654 co-occurrences
坝bà
0.439240 co-occurrences
溉gài
0.42896 co-occurrences
次cì
0.4072,796 co-occurrences
严yán
0.403384 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

旱涝保收hàn lào bǎo shōuHSK 7+

to provide a stable crop, regardless of drought or flood; to bring a stable income

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

涝灾过后，重建家园。

Lào zāi guòhòu, chóngjiàn jiāyuán.

Rebuild homes after flood disasters.

Character Family

氵 Radical Family — Characters sharing the water radical

澳ào滨bīn濒bīn波bō沧cāng测cè潮cháo澈chè澄chéng池chí

Related Characters

水shuǐ汉hàn汽qì没méi洗xǐ渴kě永yǒng求qiú河hé油yóu

Homophones — Characters pronounced lào

捞lāo唠lào劳láo牢láo老lǎo姥lǎo潦lǎo络lào

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 涝 (lào) mean in Chinese?
涝 (lào) primarily means "flooded." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2987 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 涝 have?
涝 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 涝?
The radical associated with 涝 is 氵 (water). This radical appears in many characters related to water.
What are the components of 涝?
涝 is composed of: 氵 (semantic), 劳 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰氵劳 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 涝?
Common words with 涝 include: 洪涝 (hóng lào, "flood"); 旱涝保收 (hàn lào bǎo shōu, "to provide a stable crop, regardless of drought or flood"); 内涝 (nèi lào, "waterlogged"); 排涝 (pái lào, "to drain flooded fields"); 抗涝 (kàng lào, "defenses against floods"). There are over 5 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 涝 (lào)?
Several characters share the pronunciation lào: 捞 (to fish up), 唠 (to gossip), 劳 ((bound form) to toil), 牢 (firm), and 4 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 涝 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
No. The simplified form is 涝 and the traditional form is 澇.

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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.