(qiǎo): quiet, sad

(qiǎo) is a Chinese character meaning “quiet.” Classified as HSK Level 5 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (semantic) and (phonetic). It ranks #1425 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, heart. Its radical form (heart) appears in many related characters such as (máng, busy), (kuài, fast, happy), (zěn, how).

Native pronunciation

Definitions

  1. quiet
  2. sad

Etymology & Origin

pictophoneticheart

Decomposition: ⿰忄肖 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

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

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
adverbqiāo qiāoquiet5

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
qiāo qiao huàwhisperings
qiǎo ránquietly
qiǎo wú shēng xīquietly
jìng qiāo qiāoextremely quiet
qiǎo shēngquietly
qiǎo rán wú shēngabsolutely quiet
niè qiāo qiāosoftly
qiāo qiāo mī mī(dialect) quietly
qiāo mī mīsee 悄悄咪咪[qiao1 qiao1 mi1 mi1]
10
Total compounds
80
As first character
0
As last character
20
As middle character

appears in 10 compound words: 80 as the first character, 0 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 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

liū
0.458318 co-occurrences
jìng
0.440696 co-occurrences
guī
0.405240 co-occurrences
rán
0.3963,216 co-occurrences
méng
0.371168 co-occurrences
0.358210 co-occurrences
0.355114 co-occurrences
méi
0.352120 co-occurrences
0.3475,454 co-occurrences
huà
0.345438 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

qiao¹ qiao¹ mi¹ mi¹HSK 5+

in secret; secretively; stealthily; without being detected

adverb

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

地走进房间,不想吵醒熟睡的孩子。

Tā qiāoqiāo de zǒu jìn fángjiān, bù xiǎng chǎoxǐng shúshuì de háizi.

He quietly entered the room, not wanting to wake the sleeping child.

DigitimesMar 2026

三星南韩手机市占流向苹果 折叠iPhone更将投下变数

sān xīng nán hán shǒu jī shì zhàn qiǎo qiǎo liú xiàng píng guǒ zhé dié i P h o n e gēng jiāng tóu xià biàn shǔ

Samsung's market share in South Korea's smartphone market is quietly shifting to Apple, and the launch of the foldable iPhone is set to introduce further uncertainty.

DigitimesMar 2026

不只半导体材料需求旺 新应材布局CPO

bù zhī bàn dǎo tǐ cái liào xū qiú wàng xīn yīng cái qiǎo qiǎo bù jú C P O

It's Not Just Semiconductor Materials That Are in High Demand: Xinying Materials Quietly Expands into CPO

SmzdmMar 2026

...,股市越涨?为什么牛市总在“世界末日”时启动? 博弈的逻辑的微博视频

. . . , gǔ shì yuè zhǎng ? wéi shén má niú shì zǒng zài shì jiè mò rì shí qiǎo qiǎo qǐ dòng ? bó yì de luó jí de wēi bó shì pín

..., the more the stock market rises? Why do bull markets always start quietly when the "end of the world" is predicted? A Weibo video on the logic of market dynamics

光明网_新闻视野、文化视角、思想深度、理论高度Mar 2026

当心睡眠不足,拉高孩子的血压

dāng xīn shuì mián bù zú , qiǎo qiǎo lā gāo hái zǐ de xiě yā

Beware of sleep deprivation—it can quietly raise your child’s blood pressure

SmzdmMar 2026

“过去式生活”正在然流行,看似守旧,实则越活越有底气

guò qù shì shēng huó zhèng zài qiǎo rán liú háng , kàn sì shǒu jiù , shí zé yuè huó yuè yǒu de qì

"Retro living" is quietly gaining popularity; while it may seem old-fashioned, it actually gives people a growing sense of confidence.

Tatoeba

她跟你说了什么话?

Tā gēn nǐ shuō le shénme qiāoqiaohuà?

What did she whisper to you?

Tatoeba

他静地走出了房间,谁也没有发现。

Tā jìngqiāoqiāo de zǒuchū le fángjiān, shéi yě méiyǒu fāxiàn.

He went out of the room without being noticed by anyone.

Tatoeba

玛丽地关上了门。

Mǎlì qiāoqiāo de guānshàng le mén.

Mary closed the door quietly.

Tatoeba

把信给了他。

Wǒ qiāoqiāo bǎ xìn gěi le tā.

I slipped the letter to him.

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced qiǎo

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 悄 (qiǎo) mean in Chinese?
悄 (qiǎo) primarily means "quiet." It is classified as HSK Level 5, making it an advanced character. It ranks #1425 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 悄 and 闹?
悄 (qiǎo) and 闹 (nào) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 悄 (quiet) vs 闹 (noisy).
How many strokes does 悄 have?
悄 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 悄?
The radical associated with 悄 is 忄 (heart). This radical appears in many characters related to heart.
What are the components of 悄?
悄 is composed of: 忄 (semantic), 肖 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰忄肖 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 悄?
Common words with 悄 include: 悄悄 (qiāo qiāo, "quiet"); 悄悄话 (qiāo qiao huà, "whisperings"); 悄然 (qiǎo rán, "quietly"); 悄无声息 (qiǎo wú shēng xī, "quietly"); 静悄悄 (jìng qiāo qiāo, "extremely quiet"). There are over 10 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 悄 (qiǎo)?
Several characters share the pronunciation qiǎo: 壳 ((coll.) shell (of an egg, nut, crab etc)). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 悄 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 悄 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear native 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.