拇 (mǔ): thumb

拇 (mǔ) is a Chinese character meaning “thumb.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 扌 (semantic) and 母 (phonetic). It ranks #3046 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 拇 hand. Its radical form 扌 (hand) appears in many related characters such as 手 (shǒu, hand), 打 (dǎ, hit, make), 把 (bǎ, to hold, measure word).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 扌 hand8 strokesFrequency #3046扌 semantic母 phonetic

Definitions

  1. thumb

Etymology & Origin

拇

pictophonetichand

Decomposition: ⿰扌母 (layout: left-right)

Components:扌semantic母phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
拇指mǔ zhǐthumb
大拇指dà mu zhǐthumb
小拇指xiǎo mǔ zhǐlittle finger
二拇指èr mu zhǐindex finger
竖起大拇指shù qǐ dà mu zhǐto give a thumbs-up
大拇哥dà mǔ gēthumb
拇外翻mǔ wài fānbunion
拇指甲mǔ zhǐ jiathumbnail
拇战mǔ zhànfinger-guessing game
拇趾外翻mǔ zhǐ wài fānbunion
翘拇指qiào mǔ zhǐto give a thumbs-up
拇囊炎mǔ náng yánbunion
拇趾mǔ zhǐbig toe
13
Total compounds
54
As first character
0
As last character
46
As middle character

拇 appears in 13 compound words: 54 as the first character, 0 as the last, and 46 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 拇 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

指zhǐ
0.58112,666 co-occurrences
姑gū
0.470558 co-occurrences
娘niáng
0.448558 co-occurrences
竖shù
0.442126 co-occurrences
爪zhǎo
0.430234 co-occurrences
肌jī
0.401192 co-occurrences
食shí
0.386966 co-occurrences
屈qū
0.385162 co-occurrences
伸shēn
0.382396 co-occurrences
右yòu
0.375678 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

写好拇字需要掌握正确的笔画顺序。

xiě hǎo mǔ zì xū yāo zhǎng wò zhèng què de bǐ huà shùn xù .

To write the character "拇" correctly, you need to master the correct stroke order.

NewtalkMar 2026

仅靠大拇指!巴基斯坦男子1分钟66下伏地挺身刷新...

jǐn kào dà mǔ zhǐ ! bā jī sī tǎn nán zǐ 1 fēn zhōng 6 6 xià fú dì tǐng shēn shuā xīn . . .

Using only his thumb! Pakistani man sets new record with 66 push-ups in one minute...

Character Family

扌 Radical Family — Characters sharing the hand radical

挨āi按àn扒bā拔bá把bǎ摆bǎi扳bān搬bān扮bàn拌bàn

Related Characters

手shǒu打dǎ把bǎ找zhǎo换huàn接jiē推tuī拉lā拿ná指zhǐ

Homophones — Characters pronounced mǔ

姆mǔ

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 拇 (mǔ) mean in Chinese?
拇 (mǔ) primarily means "thumb." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #3046 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 拇 and 每?
拇 (mǔ) and 每 (měi) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 扌 vs 毋 (same 母 component).
How many strokes does 拇 have?
拇 is written with 8 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 拇?
The radical associated with 拇 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 拇?
拇 is composed of: 扌 (semantic), 母 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌母 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 拇?
Common words with 拇 include: 拇指 (mǔ zhǐ, "thumb"); 大拇指 (dà mu zhǐ, "thumb"); 小拇指 (xiǎo mǔ zhǐ, "little finger"); 二拇指 (èr mu zhǐ, "index finger"); 竖起大拇指 (shù qǐ dà mu zhǐ, "to give a thumbs-up"). There are over 13 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 拇 (mǔ)?
Several characters share the pronunciation mǔ: 姆 ((old) female tutor). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 拇 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 拇 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 拇 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.