梢 (shāo): tip of branch

梢 (shāo) is a Chinese character meaning “tip of branch.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 木 (semantic) and 肖 (phonetic). It ranks #2621 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 梢 tree. Its radical form 木 (tree) appears in many related characters such as 本 (běn, (bound form) root), 机 (jī, machine, opportunity), 条 (tiáo, strip).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 木 tree11 strokesFrequency #2621木 semantic肖 phonetic

Definitions

  1. tip of branch

Etymology & Origin

梢

pictophonetictree

Decomposition: ⿰木肖 (layout: left-right)

Components:木semantic肖phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
盯梢dīng shāoto follow sb
末梢mò shāotip
树梢shù shāothe tip of a tree
发梢fà shāohair ends
眉梢méi shāotip of brow
末梢神经mò shāo shén jīngperipheral nerve
后梢hòu shāostern (of a boat)
梢公shāo gōngvariant of 艄公[shao1 gong1]
眼梢yǎn shāocorner of eye near temple
白尾梢虹雉bái wěi shāo hóng zhì(bird species of China) Sclater's monal (Lophophorus sclateri)
尾梢wěi shāothe tip
钉梢dīng shāoto follow sb
12
Total compounds
8
As first character
75
As last character
17
As middle character

梢 appears in 12 compound words: 8 as the first character, 75 as the last, and 17 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 梢 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

盯dīng
0.549276 co-occurrences
末mò
0.5162,754 co-occurrences
槛jiàn
0.46066 co-occurrences
眉méi
0.451276 co-occurrences
树shù
0.413426 co-occurrences
枝zhī
0.409300 co-occurrences
嫩nèn
0.391108 co-occurrences
枯kū
0.38972 co-occurrences
插chā
0.386348 co-occurrences
翼yì
0.381372 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

末梢神经mò shāo shén jīngHSK 7+

peripheral nerve

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

秋风起，梢叶变黄，铺满了林间小路。

qiū fēng qǐ , shāo xié biàn huáng , pù mǎn le lín jiān xiǎo lù .

Autumn winds rise, Trees turn yellow, Leaves carpet the forest paths.

Character Family

木 Radical Family — Characters sharing the tree radical

案àn柏bǎi板bǎn棒bàng杯bēi标biāo柄bǐng材cái槽cáo柴chái

Related Characters

本běn机jī条tiáo来lái杯bēi果guǒ树shù校jiào样yàng桌zhuō

Homophones — Characters pronounced shāo

捎shāo哨shào烧shāo

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 梢 (shāo) mean in Chinese?
梢 (shāo) primarily means "tip of branch." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2621 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 梢 and 消?
梢 (shāo) and 消 (xiāo) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 木 vs 氵 (same 肖 component).
How many strokes does 梢 have?
梢 is written with 11 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 梢?
The radical associated with 梢 is 木 (tree). This radical appears in many characters related to tree.
What are the components of 梢?
梢 is composed of: 木 (semantic), 肖 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰木肖 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 梢?
Common words with 梢 include: 盯梢 (dīng shāo, "to follow sb"); 末梢 (mò shāo, "tip"); 树梢 (shù shāo, "the tip of a tree"); 发梢 (fà shāo, "hair ends"); 眉梢 (méi shāo, "tip of brow"). There are over 12 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 梢 (shāo)?
Several characters share the pronunciation shāo: 捎 (to bring sth to sb), 哨 (a whistle), 烧 (to burn, to cook). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 梢 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 梢 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.