瘸 (qué): lame

瘸 (qué) is a Chinese character meaning “lame.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 疒 (semantic), 加 (phonetic) and 肉 (structural). It ranks #3087 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 瘸 sickness. Its radical form 疒 (illness) appears in many related characters such as 病 (bìng, illness), 痛 (tòng, pain), 医 (yī, medicine).

Spoken pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 疒 illness16 strokesFrequency #3087疒 semantic加 phonetic肉 structural

Definitions

  1. lame

Etymology & Origin

瘸

pictophoneticsickness

Decomposition: ⿸疒⿱加肉 (layout: surround-from-upper-left)

Components:疒semantic加phonetic肉structural

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
瘸子nounqué zilame person (colloquial)
瘸腿nounqué tuǐcrippled
一瘸一拐adjectiveyī qué yī guǎito limp
瘸帮proper-nounqué bāngCrips (gang)
4
Total compounds
75
As first character
0
As last character
25
As middle character

瘸 appears in 4 compound words: 75 as the first character, 0 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 瘸 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

腿tuǐ
0.570202 co-occurrences
拐guǎi
0.56682 co-occurrences
靴xuē
0.47026 co-occurrences
猫māo
0.37112 co-occurrences
脚jiǎo
0.34514 co-occurrences
子zǐ
0.339242 co-occurrences
帮bāng
0.32112 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

一瘸一拐yīquéyīguǎiHSK 7+

to walk with a limp

adjective

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

写好瘸字需要掌握正确的笔画顺序。

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

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

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 疒 (sickness) component

病bìng痛tòng症zhèng疯fēng疾jí疼téng癫diān疹zhěn疲pí痕hén

Related Characters

病bìng痛tòng医yī疗liáo瘦shòu疯fēng疲pí症zhèng疾jí疼téng

Homophones — Characters pronounced qué

雀què

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 瘸 (qué) mean in Chinese?
瘸 (qué) primarily means "lame." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #3087 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 瘸 and 架?
瘸 (qué) and 架 (jià) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 疒 vs 木 (same 加 component).
How many strokes does 瘸 have?
瘸 is written with 16 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 瘸?
The radical associated with 瘸 is 疒 (illness). This radical appears in many characters related to illness.
What are the components of 瘸?
瘸 is composed of: 疒 (semantic), 加 (phonetic), 肉 (structural). Its IDS decomposition is ⿸疒⿱加肉 with a surround-from-upper-left layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 瘸?
Common words with 瘸 include: 瘸子 (qué zi, "lame person (colloquial)"); 瘸腿 (qué tuǐ, "crippled"); 一瘸一拐 (yī qué yī guǎi, "to limp"); 瘸帮 (qué bāng, "Crips (gang)"). There are over 4 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 瘸 (qué)?
Several characters share the pronunciation qué: 雀 ((bound form) small bird). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 瘸 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 瘸 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 瘸 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.