搂 (lōu): to draw towards oneself, to gather, to gather up (one's gown, sleeves etc)

搂 (lōu) is a Chinese character meaning “to draw towards oneself.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 扌 (semantic) and 娄 (phonetic). It ranks #2627 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 搂 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
HSK 7-9Radical: 扌 hand12 strokesFrequency #2627扌 semantic娄 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to draw towards oneself
  2. to gather
  3. to gather up (one's gown, sleeves etc)

Etymology & Origin

搂

pictophonetichand

Decomposition: ⿰扌娄 (layout: left-right)

Components:扌semantic娄phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
搂抱verblǒu bàoto hug
抖搂dǒu louto shake out
搂住verblǒu zhùto hold in one's arms
搂钱lōu qián(coll.) to grab money
扒搂pá louto gather together as with a rake
5
Total compounds
60
As first character
40
As last character
0
As middle character

搂 appears in 5 compound words: 60 as the first character, 40 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 搂 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

抱bào
0.53372 co-occurrences
闸zhá
0.44210 co-occurrences
箭jiàn
0.36510 co-occurrences
亲qīn
0.35416 co-occurrences
着zhe
0.34922 co-occurrences
住zhù
0.33622 co-occurrences
楼lóu
0.32910 co-occurrences
女nǚ
0.26116 co-occurrences
被bèi
0.21210 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

搂照镜子，整理一下自己的仪容。

lōu zhào jìng zǐ , zhěng lǐ yī xià zì jǐ de yí róng .

Look in the mirror and tidy up your appearance.

中時新聞網Mar 2026

刘亦菲同框安海瑟薇 互搂腰瞬间被封“世纪神图”全网赞爆

liú yì 菲 tóng kuàng ān hǎi 瑟 薇 hù lōu yāo shùn jiān bèi fēng shì jì shén tú quán wǎng zàn bào

Liu Yifei and Anne Hathaway Pose Together; Their Arm-Around-the-Waist Moment Is Dubbed the "Photo of the Century" and Goes Viral

Hk01.comFeb 2026

内蒙10岁女童遭强行搂抱亲吻 六旬继父短片平台账号被封

nèi méng 1 0 suì nǚ tóng zāo qiáng háng lōu bào qīn wěn liù xún jì fù duǎn piàn píng tái zhàng hào bèi fēng

A 10-year-old girl in Inner Mongolia was forcibly hugged and kissed by her sixty-year-old stepfather's short video platform account was blocked

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 扌 (hand) component

把bǎ打dǎ提tí接jiē拉lā持chí据jù技jì推tuī投tóu

Related Characters

手shǒu打dǎ找zhǎo拿ná才cái护hù报bào拉lā挺tǐng换huàn

Homophones — Characters pronounced lōu

楼lóu漏lòu陋lòu

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 搂 (lōu) mean in Chinese?
搂 (lōu) primarily means "to draw towards oneself." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2627 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 搂 and 下?
搂 (lōu) and 下 (xià) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 搂 (up) vs 下 (down).
How many strokes does 搂 have?
搂 is written with 12 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 搂?
The radical associated with 搂 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 搂?
搂 is composed of: 扌 (semantic), 娄 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌娄 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 搂?
Common words with 搂 include: 搂抱 (lǒu bào, "to hug"); 抖搂 (dǒu lou, "to shake out"); 搂住 (lǒu zhù, "to hold in one's arms"); 搂钱 (lōu qián, "(coll.) to grab money"); 扒搂 (pá lou, "to gather together as with a rake"). There are over 5 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 搂 (lōu)?
Several characters share the pronunciation lōu: 楼 (building, floor), 漏 (to leak), 陋 (low). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 搂 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 搂 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 搂 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.