(sōu): to search, (bound form) to collect, to gather

(sōu) is a Chinese character meaning “to search.” Classified as HSK Level 5 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (semantic) and (phonetic). It ranks #1554 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, hand. Its radical form (hand) appears in many related characters such as (shǒu, hand), (, hit, make), (zhǎo, to look for).

Native pronunciation

Definitions

  1. to search
  2. (bound form) to collect
  3. to gather

Etymology & Origin

pictophonetichand

Decomposition: ⿰扌叟 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

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

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

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
verbsōu suǒto search (a place, a database, online etc)5
verbsōu jíto gather6

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
sōu cháto search
sōu xúnto search
sōu bǔto hunt and arrest (fugitives)
sōu shēnto do a body search
sōu suǒ yǐn qíngsearch engine
sōu guāto rake in (money)
sōu luóto gather
sōu kuòsee 搜刮[sou1 gua1]
sōu shén jìIn Search of the Supernatural, compilation of legends about spirits, ghosts and other supernatural phenomena, written...
quán wén sōu suǒfull-text search
shàng rè sōu(Internet) (of a search query) to be trending
sōu chá lìngsearch warrant
qíng sōuintelligence gathering
rén ròu sōu suǒto crowdsource information about sb or sth (typically as a form of vigilantism resulting in doxing)
sōu suǒ duìsearch party
34
Total compounds
79
As first character
12
As last character
9
As middle character

appears in 34 compound words: 79 as the first character, 12 as the last, and 9 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 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

xún
0.73059,166 co-occurrences
suǒ
0.63487,457 co-occurrences
0.60512,426 co-occurrences
huá
0.57747,382 co-occurrences
chá
0.55353,443 co-occurrences
qíng
0.54712,774 co-occurrences
0.53947,508 co-occurrences
guā
0.5322,700 co-occurrences
jiù
0.49820,861 co-occurrences
0.46311,220 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (2)

sōusuǒkūchángHSK 6+

to rack one's brain; to think extremely hard

phrase
sōuxún yǐnqíngHSK 7+

search engine

noun

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

照镜子,整理一下自己的仪容。

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

Look in the mirror and tidy up your appearance.

Hk01.comFeb 2026

长和旗下PPC传遭巴拿马检察官突击查 路透..与港口争议无关

cháng hé qí xià P P C chuán zāo bā ná mǎ jiǎn chá guān tū jī sōu chá lù tòu . . yǔ gǎng kǒu zhēng yì wú guān

Changhe's PPC was rumored to have been raided by Panamanian prosecutors Reuters: It has nothing to do with port disputes

Am730Feb 2026

...变“寻犬侦探” 大品牌新功能让邻居镜头组救网(有片)

. . . biàn xún quǎn zhēn tàn dà pǐn pái xīn gōng néng ràng lín jū jìng tóu zǔ sōu jiù wǎng ( yǒu piàn )

... Become a "dog detective" new feature of a big brand to let the neighbor lens group search and rescue network (with a video)

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

遇拖吊业者坐地起价 律师:先证自保

yù tuō diào yè zhě zuò dì qǐ jià lǜ shī : xiān sōu zhèng zì bǎo

When the towing industry sits on the ground and raises the price Lawyer: First collect evidence to protect yourself

It之家Feb 2026

Reddit 将商品卡片带入索结果,让社区推荐转化为实际购买行为

R e d d i t jiāng shāng pǐn kǎ piàn dài rù sōu suǒ jié guǒ , ràng shè qū tuī jiàn zhuǎn huà wéi shí jì gòu mǎi háng wéi

Reddit brings product cards into search results, allowing community recommendations to turn into actual purchases

東森新聞Feb 2026

她退货国家地理杂志服饰“控被肉IG” 业者回应了

tā tuì huò guó jiā dì lǐ zá zhì fú shì kòng bèi ròu sōu I G yè zhě huí yīng le

She returned National Geographic magazine clothing "accused of being searched by meat IG" The industry responded

Tatoeba

罗德里格寻房间。

Luó Délǐ gé sōuxún fángjiān.

Rodrigo searched the room.

Tatoeba

仔细寻敌人可能藏身的灌木丛。

Zǐxì sōuxún dírén kěnéng cángshēn de guànmùcóng.

Investigate thoroughly the bushes where the enemy may be hiding.

Tatoeba

列昂尼德寻了网际网路。

Liè áng ní dé sōuxún le wǎngjìwǎnglù.

Leonid searched the Internet.

Tatoeba

警方正在寻一名逃犯。

Jǐngfāng zhèngzài sōuxún yī míng táofàn.

The police is searching for an escaped prisoner.

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced sōu

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 搜 (sōu) mean in Chinese?
搜 (sōu) primarily means "to search." It is classified as HSK Level 5, making it an advanced character. It ranks #1554 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 搜 and 瘦?
搜 (sōu) and 瘦 (shòu) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 扌 vs 疒 (same 叟 component).
How many strokes does 搜 have?
搜 is written with 12 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 搜?
The radical associated with 搜 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 搜?
搜 is composed of: 扌 (semantic), 叟 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌叟 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 搜?
Common words with 搜 include: 搜查 (sōu chá, "to search"); 搜索 (sōu suǒ, "to search (a place, a database, online etc)"); 搜寻 (sōu xún, "to search"); 搜集 (sōu jí, "to gather"); 搜捕 (sōu bǔ, "to hunt and arrest (fugitives)"). There are over 34 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 搜 (sōu)?
Several characters share the pronunciation sōu: 艘 (classifier for ships), 嗽 ((bound form) to cough). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 搜 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 搜 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear native 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.