扰 (rǎo): to disturb

扰 (rǎo) is a Chinese character meaning “to disturb.” Classified as HSK Level 4 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 扌 (semantic) and 尤 (phonetic). It ranks #1474 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 扰 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).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. to disturb

Etymology & Origin

扰

pictophonetichand

Decomposition: ⿰扌尤 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

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

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with 扰

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
打扰verbdǎ rǎoto disturb4
困扰verbkùn rǎoto perplex6
干扰verbgān rǎoto disturb6

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
骚扰verbsāo rǎoto disturb
性骚扰verbxìng sāo rǎosexual harassment
扰乱verbrǎo luànto disturb
烦扰verbfán rǎoto bother
侵扰verbqīn rǎoto invade and harass
惊扰verbjīng rǎoto alarm
扰动rǎo dòngto disturb
扰民verbrǎo mín(of government policy, noise pollution, crime etc) to make people's lives difficult
纷扰adjectivefēn rǎoturmoil
干扰素noungān rǎo sùinterferon
搅扰verbjiǎo rǎoto disturb
打扰了phrasedǎ rǎo lesorry to interrupt you, but ...
自相惊扰zì xiāng jīng rǎoto frighten one another
不胜其扰phrasebù shèng qí rǎounable to put up with (sth) any longer
微扰展开wēi rǎo zhǎn kāiperturbative expansion (physics)
40
Total compounds
13
As first character
73
As last character
15
As middle character

扰 appears in 40 compound words: 13 as the first character, 73 as the last, and 15 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 扰 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

骚sāo
0.6975,148 co-occurrences
干gān
0.5809,710 co-occurrences
乱luàn
0.5772,850 co-occurrences
困kùn
0.5324,050 co-occurrences
蠢chǔn
0.51413 co-occurrences
膨péng
0.50513 co-occurrences
侵qīn
0.4701,522 co-occurrences
袭xí
0.457944 co-occurrences
攘rǎng
0.44480 co-occurrences
眠mián
0.43512 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (6)

兵戈扰攘bīng gē rǎo rǎngHSK 7+

arms and confusion (idiom); turmoil of war

phrase
不胜其扰bùshèngqírǎoHSK 5+

to be unable to bear the disturbance any longer

phrase
非诚勿扰fēichéngwùrǎoHSK 7+

If you are not sincere then do not bother. / Serious inquiries only.

phrase
请勿打扰qǐng wù dǎrǎoHSK 7+

do not disturb

phrase
庸人自扰yōngrénzìrǎoHSK 7+

to ask for trouble for no reason; to get one's panties in a bunch

phrase
自相惊扰zì xiāng jīng rǎoHSK 4+

to frighten one another

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他扰了一个电话,约朋友晚上一起吃饭。

tā rǎo le yī gě diàn huà , yāo péng yǒu wǎn shǎng yī qǐ chī fàn .

He made a phone call to arrange dinner with a friend that evening.

99 健康网Feb 2026

...a检查有影响吗?DNA本身不受哺乳行为干扰吗

. . . a jiǎn chá yǒu yǐng xiǎng ma ? D N A běn shēn bù shòu bǔ rǔ háng wéi gān rǎo ma

... Does a check have an impact? Is DNA itself not interfered with by lactation?

News For ChineseFeb 2026

假AI动物照片困扰动物收容所

jiǎ A I dòng wù zhào piàn kùn rǎo dòng wù shōu róng suǒ

Fake AI animal photos plague animal shelters

Am730Feb 2026

史上最长国情咨文演说 美国关税问题仍扰攘市场

shǐ shàng zuì cháng guó qíng zī wén yǎn shuō měi guó guān shuì wèn tí réng rǎo rǎng shì chǎng

The longest State of the Union address in history U.S. tariffs continue to disturb the market

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

噪音扰人 三莺线增隔音墙 学校纳入优先

zào yīn rǎo rén sān 莺 xiàn zēng gé yīn qiáng xué jiào nà rù yōu xiān

Noise is disturbing, and the school is given priority to the addition of soundproof walls on the Sanying line

百度新闻Feb 2026

...放寒假每天睡到中午12点,爸爸不许家人打扰..

. . . fàng hán jiǎ měi tiān shuì dào zhōng wǔ 1 2 diǎn , bà bà bù xǔ jiā rén dǎ rǎo . .

... During the winter vacation, I slept until 12 noon every day, and my father did not allow his family to disturb him:

Tatoeba

苍蝇和蚊子干扰了他的冥想。

Cāngying hé wénzi gānrǎo le tā de míngxiǎng.

Flies and mosquitoes interfered with his meditation.

Tatoeba

我们军队总是被游击队骚扰。

Wǒmen jūnduì zǒngshì bèi yóujīduì sāorǎo.

Our troops were constantly attacked by the guerrillas.

Tatoeba

汤姆说噪音打扰了他。

Tāngmǔ shuō zàoyīn dǎrǎo le tā.

Tom said that the noise bothered him.

Tatoeba

我希望没打扰到你吧?

Wǒ xīwàng méi dǎrǎo dào nǐ ba?

I hope I'm not disturbing you.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 扌 (hand) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced rǎo

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 扰 (rǎo) mean in Chinese?
扰 (rǎo) primarily means "to disturb." It is classified as HSK Level 4, making it an upper-intermediate character. It ranks #1474 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 扰 and 优?
扰 (rǎo) and 优 (yōu) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 扌 vs 亻 (same 尤 component).
How many strokes does 扰 have?
扰 is written with 7 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 扰?
The radical associated with 扰 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 扰?
扰 is composed of: 扌 (semantic), 尤 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌尤 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 扰?
Common words with 扰 include: 打扰 (dǎ rǎo, "to disturb"); 困扰 (kùn rǎo, "to perplex"); 骚扰 (sāo rǎo, "to disturb"); 干扰 (gān rǎo, "to disturb"); 性骚扰 (xìng sāo rǎo, "sexual harassment"). There are over 40 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 扰 (rǎo)?
Several characters share the pronunciation rǎo: 绕 (to wind), 饶 (forgive, rich). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 扰 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 扰 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 扰 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear spoken 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.