(): fast, speed

() is a Chinese character meaning “fast, speed.” Classified as HSK Level 4 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (semantic) and (phonetic). It ranks #617 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, walk. Its radical form (walk) appears in many related characters such as (biān, side), (guò, to pass, past), (hái, still, return).

Native pronunciation

Definitions

  1. fast, speed

Etymology & Origin

pictophoneticwalk

Decomposition: ⿺辶束 (layout: surround-from-lower-left)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

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
nounsù dùspeed4
adjectivekuài sùfast4
adjectivexùn sùrapid5
verbjiā sùto accelerate5
adjectivegāo sùhigh speed4
nounshí sùspeed per hour6
chāo sùto exceed the speed limit5
adverbfēi sùswift6
nounchē sùvehicle speed4

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
jiǎn sùto reduce speed
guāng sùthe speed of light
gāo sù lùhighway
quán sùtop speed
jí sùhurried
sù juéquick decision
bù sù zhī kè(idiom) uninvited or unexpected guest
fēng sùwind speed
jiā sù qìaccelerator (computing)
shén sùlightning speed
xiàn sùspeed limit
yīn sùspeed of sound
sù dòngto quick-freeze
sù lǜspeed
huǒ sùat top speed
100
Total compounds
29
As first character
46
As last character
25
As middle character

appears in 100 compound words: 29 as the first character, 46 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 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

xùn
0.765209,505 co-occurrences
kuài
0.719386,641 co-occurrences
0.597449,826 co-occurrences
gāo
0.582451,806 co-occurrences
0.498238,212 co-occurrences
màn
0.48426,550 co-occurrences
xiāng
0.48221,954 co-occurrences
0.45033,348 co-occurrences
jiā
0.450166,436 co-occurrences
huá
0.43420,076 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (5)

bīngguìshénsùHSK 6+

speed is essential in war

phrase
bùsùzhīkèHSK 4+

uninvited or unexpected guest

phrase
mǎ gōng méi sùHSK 7+

Sima Xiangru is meticulous and Mei Gao is fast (idiom); to each his good points

phrase
sùzhànsùjuéHSK 5+

to take prompt action to achieve a quick victory; to adopt a blitzkrieg strategy

phrase
yǔzhòu sùdùHSK 7+

cosmic velocity

noun

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

公路上车很快,要注意安全驾驶。

Gāosù gōnglù shang chē sù hěn kuài, yào zhùyì ānquán jiàshǐ.

Vehicles travel very fast on the highway; safe driving is required.

百度新闻Feb 2026

冬奥会|全天综合:中国滑再迎突破 中井亚美领跑花..

dōng ào huì quán tiān zèng gě zhōng guó sù huá zài yíng tū pò zhōng jǐng yà měi lǐng pǎo huā . .

Winter Olympics|All Day Roundup: China's speed skating breaks through again, and Ami Nakai leads the way in flower...

百度新闻Feb 2026

...体:春晚人形机器人表演展现中国人工智能飞发..

. . . tī chūn wǎn rén xíng jī qì rén biǎo yǎn zhǎn xiàn zhōng guó rén gōng zhì néng fēi sù fā . .

... Body:Spring Festival Gala Humanoid Robot Performance Shows China's Artificial Intelligence Rapidly Developing...

百度新闻Feb 2026

川AG大军注意!雅西高成都往西昌方向多路段车多缓..

chuān dà jūn zhù yì ! yǎ xī gāo sù chéng dū wǎng xī chāng fāng xiàng duō lù duàn chē duō huǎn . .

Sichuan AG army attention! Yaxi Expressway, Chengdu to Xichang direction of many sections of the traffic slow ...

百度新闻Feb 2026

一杯热水赠归人 一句感谢显温情 环兰高人:点滴之..

yī bēi rè shuǐ zèng guī rén yī gōu gǎn xiè xiǎn wēn qíng huán lán gāo sù rén diǎn dī zhī . .

A cup of hot water for the returnees A word of thanks for the warmth of the Huanlan Expressway people: a little bit of...

百度新闻Feb 2026

2026年世界知识产权报告:创新传播度达历史新高

nián shì jiè zhī shí chǎn quán bào gào chuàng xīn chuán bō sù dù dá lì shǐ xīn gāo

2026 World Intellectual Property Report: Innovation Dissemination Reaches Historic High

Tatoeba

怎么用路由器限制网

Zěnme yòng lùyóuqì xiànzhì wǎng sù?

How can a router be used to limit network speed?

Tatoeba

哇,她真是神啊,真让我印象深刻!

Wā, tā zhēnshi shénsù ā, zhēn ràng wǒ yìnxiàng shēnkè!

Wow, she’s got a lot of pace, I’m impressed!

Tatoeba

小偷迅地窜入了人群。

Xiǎotōu xùnsù de cuàn rù le rénqún.

The thief whipped out into the crowd.

Tatoeba

我被他英语的快进步惊呆了。

Wǒ bèi tā Yīngyǔ de kuàisù jìnbù jīngdāi le.

I'm amazed at his rapid progress in English.

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 速 (sù) mean in Chinese?
速 (sù) primarily means "fast, speed." It is classified as HSK Level 4, making it an upper-intermediate character. It ranks #617 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 速 and 慢?
速 (sù) and 慢 (màn) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 速 (fast) vs 慢 (slow).
How many strokes does 速 have?
速 is written with 10 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 速?
The radical associated with 速 is 辶 (walk). This radical appears in many characters related to walk.
What are the components of 速?
速 is composed of: 辶 (semantic), 束 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿺辶束 with a surround-from-lower-left layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 速?
Common words with 速 include: 速度 (sù dù, "speed"); 快速 (kuài sù, "fast"); 迅速 (xùn sù, "rapid"); 加速 (jiā sù, "to accelerate"); 高速 (gāo sù, "high speed"). There are over 100 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 速 (sù)?
Several characters share the pronunciation sù: 苏 (revive), 酥 (flaky pastry), 俗 (custom), 诉 (to complain), and 5 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 速 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 速 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.