撬 (qiào): to lift, to pry open, to lever open

撬 (qiào) is a Chinese character meaning “to lift.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 扌 (semantic) and 毳 (phonetic). It ranks #2943 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 撬 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).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 扌 hand15 strokesFrequency #2943扌 semantic毳 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to lift
  2. to pry open
  3. to lever open

Etymology & Origin

撬

pictophonetichand

Decomposition: ⿰扌毳 (layout: left-right)

Components:扌semantic毳phonetic

Stroke Order

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

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
撬棍qiào gùncrowbar
撬杠qiào gàngcrowbar
撬棒qiào bàngcrowbar
撬开qiào kāito pry open
撬动qiào dòngto shift sth with a crowbar etc
撬门qiào ménto break in
铁撬tiě qiàocrowbar
撬锁qiào suǒto pick a lock
撬窃qiào qièburglary
9
Total compounds
89
As first character
11
As last character
0
As middle character

撬 appears in 9 compound words: 89 as the first character, 11 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 撬 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

棍gùn
0.567438 co-occurrences
疯fēng
0.42442 co-occurrences
锁suǒ
0.40978 co-occurrences
痕hén
0.38048 co-occurrences
窗chuāng
0.35460 co-occurrences
开kāi
0.349450 co-occurrences
箱xiāng
0.34354 co-occurrences
刀dāo
0.34378 co-occurrences
杆gān
0.34230 co-occurrences
盗dào
0.34130 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

撬照镜子，整理一下自己的仪容。

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

Adjust your appearance in the mirror.

中国新闻网_梳理天下新闻Apr 2026

(走进中国乡村)探访西藏嘎拉村:灼灼桃花撬动乡村振兴

( zǒu jìn zhōng guó xiāng cūn ) tàn fǎng xī zàng 嘎 lā cūn : zhuó zhuó táo huā qiào dòng xiāng cūn zhèn xīng

中国新闻网_梳理天下新闻Apr 2026

小词元撬动智能经济大市场(大数据观察·智能经济新...

xiǎo cí yuán qiào dòng zhì néng jīng jì dà shì chǎng ( dà shǔ jù guàn chá zhì néng jīng jì xīn . . .

The Beijing NewsMar 2026

春秋小假期撬动消费大市场

chūn qiū xiǎo jiǎ qī qiào dòng xiāo fèi dà shì chǎng

中国新闻网_梳理天下新闻Feb 2026

泉州小木偶,撬动观演大市场

quán zhōu xiǎo mù ǒu , qiào dòng guàn yǎn dà shì chǎng

Quanzhou puppets leverage the big market for performances

Tatoeba

他们试图用一根铁棒撬开锁。

Tāmen shìtú yòng yī gēn tiěbàng qiàokāi suǒ.

They tried to pry the lock open with an iron bar.

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找zhǎo拿ná才cái护hù报bào拉lā挺tǐng换huàn

Homophones — Characters pronounced qiào

壳qiào悄qiǎo敲qiāo乔qiáo侨qiáo桥qiáo瞧qiáo巧qiǎo俏qiào窍qiào

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 撬 (qiào) mean in Chinese?
撬 (qiào) primarily means "to lift." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2943 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 撬 and 闭?
撬 (qiào) and 闭 (bì) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 撬 (open) vs 闭 (close).
How many strokes does 撬 have?
撬 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 撬?
The radical associated with 撬 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 撬?
撬 is composed of: 扌 (semantic), 毳 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌毳 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 撬?
Common words with 撬 include: 撬棍 (qiào gùn, "crowbar"); 撬杠 (qiào gàng, "crowbar"); 撬棒 (qiào bàng, "crowbar"); 撬开 (qiào kāi, "to pry open"); 撬动 (qiào dòng, "to shift sth with a crowbar etc"). There are over 9 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 撬 (qiào)?
Several characters share the pronunciation qiào: 壳 ((coll.) shell (of an egg, nut, crab etc)), 悄 (quiet), 敲 (to hit), 乔 (tall), and 6 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 撬 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 撬 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 撬 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.