摩 (mó): to rub

摩 (mó) is a Chinese character meaning “to rub.” Classified as HSK Level 6 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 麻 (phonetic) and 手 (semantic). It ranks #1160 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 摩 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 rub

Etymology & Origin

摩

pictophonetichand

Decomposition: ⿸麻手 (layout: surround-from-upper-left)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15

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

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with 摩

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
按摩verbàn mómassage6
摩托车nounmó tuō chē(loanword) motorbike6

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
福尔摩斯proper-nounfú ěr mó sīSherlock Holmes, 歇洛克·福爾摩斯|歇洛克·福尔摩斯
摩托nounmó tuō(loanword) motor
摩根proper-nounmó gēnMorgan (name)
摩西proper-nounmó xīMoses
摩擦verbmó cāfriction
摩尔measuremó ěrmole (chemistry)
巴尔的摩proper-nounbā ěr dì móBaltimore (place name, surname etc)
按摩师nounàn mó shīmasseur
摩洛哥proper-nounmó luò gēMorocco
摩萨德proper-nounmó sà déMossad
爱斯基摩proper-nounài sī jī móEskimo
斯德哥尔摩sī dé gē ěr móStockholm, capital of Sweden
观摩verbguān móto observe and emulate
摩天大楼nounmó tiān dà lóuskyscraper
摩纳哥proper-nounmó nà gēMonaco
100
Total compounds
57
As first character
18
As last character
25
As middle character

摩 appears in 100 compound words: 57 as the first character, 18 as the last, and 25 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 摩 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

擦cā
0.5859,570 co-occurrences
崖yá
0.5504,142 co-occurrences
托tuō
0.54418,742 co-occurrences
揣chuāi
0.523669 co-occurrences
哥gē
0.48718,538 co-occurrences
棱léng
0.4821,086 co-occurrences
尔ěr
0.46321,740 co-occurrences
根gēn
0.44211,925 co-occurrences
福fú
0.43910,340 co-occurrences
按àn
0.4385,422 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (21)

阿摩尼亚āmóníyàHSK 7+

ammonia (gas)

noun
阿摩司书ĀmósīshūHSK 6+

Amos (book of the Bible)

爱斯基摩ÀisījīmóHSK 7+

Eskimo

巴尔的摩Bā'ěrdìmóHSK 6+

Baltimore

福尔摩沙Fú'ěrmóshāHSK 6+

Formosa (historic name of Taiwan); Formosa (a province in northern Argentina)

罗摩衍那LuómóyǎnnàHSK 7+

Ramayana

摩尔多瓦Mó'ěrduōwǎHSK 7+

Moldova (a country in Eastern Europe)

摩尔门经Mó'ěrmén JīngHSK 6+

Book of Mormon

摩加迪沙MójiādíshāHSK 7+

Mogadishu (the capital of Somalia)

摩加迪休MójiādíxiūHSK 7+

Mogadishu (the capital city of Somalia)

摩拳擦掌móquáncāzhǎngHSK 7+

to rub one's fists and wipe one's palms; to roll up one's sleeves for a battle

phrase
摩天大楼mótiān dàlóuHSK 6+

skyscraper

noun

Showing 12 of 21 idioms containing 摩.

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他摩起袖子,开始认真地打扫房间。

tā mā qǐ xiù zǐ , kāi shǐ rèn zhēn dì dǎ sǎo fáng jiān .

He rolled up his sleeves and began cleaning the room thoroughly.

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

艾司摩尔技术报喜!台积盘后交易首破2000大关

ài sī mó ěr jì shù bào xǐ ! tái jī pán hòu jiāo yì shǒu pò 2 0 0 0 dà guān

Esmore Technology News! TSMC's after-hours trading broke the 2,000 mark for the first time

Orientaldaily MyFeb 2026

南北大道闪避不及撞值勤交警 摩哆骑士伤重不治

nán běi dà dào shǎn bì bù jí zhuàng zhí qín jiāo jǐng mó duō qí shì shāng chóng bù zhì

The north-south avenue dodged and collided with the traffic police on duty Modo Knight was seriously injured and died

工商時報Feb 2026

艾司摩尔突破EUV光源瓶颈 功率提升至千瓦 拚...

ài sī mó ěr tū pò E U V guāng yuán píng jǐng gōng lǜ tí shēng zhì qiān wǎ 拚 . . .

Esmore breaks through the bottleneck of EUV light sources and increases the power to kilowatts.

Yahoo FinanceFeb 2026

摩通:保荐人新规无碍优质企上市

mó tōng : bǎo jiàn rén xīn guī wú ài yōu zhì qǐ shàng shì

Morgan Stanley: The new sponsor regulations do not hinder the listing of high-quality enterprises

三立新聞網Feb 2026

摩根大通“1原因”关闭川普银行帐户

mó gēn dà tōng 1 yuán yīn guān bì chuān pǔ yín háng zhàng hù

JPMorgan Chase closed Trump's bank account for "1 reason"

Tatoeba

斯德哥尔摩是瑞典的首都。

Sīdégē'ěrmó shì Ruìdiǎn de shǒudū.

Stockholm is the capital of Sweden.

Tatoeba

汤姆骑摩托车上班。

Tāngmǔ qí mótuōchē shàngbān.

Tom goes to work by motorcycle.

Tatoeba

你为什么不把摩托车拿去修理?

Nǐ wèi shénme bù bǎ mótuōchē ná qù xiūlǐ?

Why don't you have your motorcycle fixed up?

Tatoeba

你跟摩托车到底怎么回事?

Nǐ gēn mótuōchē dàodǐ zěnmehuíshì?

What is it with you and motorbikes?

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 手 (hand) component

扌 Radical Family — Characters sharing the hand radical

Homophones — Characters pronounced mó

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 摩 (mó) mean in Chinese?
摩 (mó) primarily means "to rub." It is classified as HSK Level 6, making it an advanced character. It ranks #1160 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 摩 and 嘛?
摩 (mó) and 嘛 (ma) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 扌 vs 口 (same 麻 component).
How many strokes does 摩 have?
摩 is written with 15 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 摩?
The radical associated with 摩 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 摩?
摩 is composed of: 麻 (phonetic), 手 (semantic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿸麻手 with a surround-from-upper-left layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 摩?
Common words with 摩 include: 福尔摩斯 (fú ěr mó sī, "Sherlock Holmes, 歇洛克·福爾摩斯|歇洛克·福尔摩斯"); 按摩 (àn mó, "massage"); 摩托车 (mó tuō chē, "(loanword) motorbike"); 摩托 (mó tuō, "(loanword) motor"); 摩根 (mó gēn, "Morgan (name)"). There are over 100 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 摩 (mó)?
Several characters share the pronunciation mó: 魔 ((bound form) evil spirit), 磨 (to grind, to wear), 抹 (to wipe). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 摩 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 摩 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 摩 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.