跷 (qiāo): to raise one's foot

跷 (qiāo) is a Chinese character meaning “to raise one's foot.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 足 (semantic) and 尧 (phonetic). It ranks #3121 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 跷 foot. Its radical form 足 (foot) appears in many related characters such as 足 (zú, foot), 跑 (pǎo, to run), 路 (lù, road).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 足 foot13 strokesFrequency #3121足 semantic尧 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to raise one's foot

Etymology & Origin

跷

pictophoneticfoot

Decomposition: ⿰足尧 (layout: left-right)

Components:足semantic尧phonetic

Stroke Order

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

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
蹊跷qī qiāoodd
跷跷板qiāo qiāo bǎnsee-saw
高跷gāo qiāostilts
踩高跷cǎi gāo qiāoto walk on stilts
跷家qiāo jiāto run away from home
高跷鹬gāo qiāo yù(bird species of China) stilt sandpiper (Calidris himantopus)
按跷àn qiāo(old) massage
跷班qiāo bānsee 翹班|翘班[qiao4 ban1]
跷课qiāo kèto skip class
9
Total compounds
44
As first character
44
As last character
11
As middle character

跷 appears in 9 compound words: 44 as the first character, 44 as the last, and 11 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 跷 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

蹊qī
0.748420 co-occurrences
踩cǎi
0.583192 co-occurrences
板bǎn
0.483474 co-occurrences
脉mài
0.38336 co-occurrences
高gāo
0.363528 co-occurrences
脚jiǎo
0.36336 co-occurrences
练liàn
0.32030 co-occurrences
亡wáng
0.27536 co-occurrences
功gōng
0.27148 co-occurrences
效xiào
0.26936 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

这个跷字在古汉语中有不同的含义。

zhè gè qiāo zì zài gǔ hàn yǔ zhōng yǒu bù tóng de hán yì .

In Classical Chinese, the character "跷" has different meanings.

三立新聞網Mar 2026

女师不伦人夫同事 遭认跷班激战判赔12万

nǚ shī bù lún rén fū tóng shì zāo rèn qiāo bān jī zhàn pàn péi 1 2 wàn

Female Teacher Caught Having Affair with Married Coworker; Ordered to Pay 120,000 Yuan in Damages After Being Caught Skipping Work for a Steamy Encounter

Character Family

足 Radical Family — Characters sharing the foot radical

蹦bèng踩cǎi蹭cèng踹chuài蹈dǎo蹬dēng蹲cún跟gēn跪guì践jiàn

Related Characters

足zú跑pǎo路lù跟gēn跳tiào踢tī踩cǎi踏tà距jù跌diē

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 跷 (qiāo) mean in Chinese?
跷 (qiāo) primarily means "to raise one's foot." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #3121 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 跷 and 烧?
跷 (qiāo) and 烧 (shāo) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 足 vs 火 (same 尧 component).
How many strokes does 跷 have?
跷 is written with 13 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 跷?
The radical associated with 跷 is 足 (foot). This radical appears in many characters related to foot.
What are the components of 跷?
跷 is composed of: 足 (semantic), 尧 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰足尧 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 跷?
Common words with 跷 include: 蹊跷 (qī qiāo, "odd"); 跷跷板 (qiāo qiāo bǎn, "see-saw"); 高跷 (gāo qiāo, "stilts"); 踩高跷 (cǎi gāo qiāo, "to walk on stilts"); 跷家 (qiāo jiā, "to run away from home"). There are over 9 compound words containing this character.
Is 跷 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 跷 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

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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.