嗦 (suō): to suck, used in 囉嗦|啰嗦, used in 哆嗦

嗦 (suō) is a Chinese character meaning “to suck.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 口 (semantic) and 索 (phonetic). It ranks #2791 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 嗦 mouth. Its radical form 口 (mouth) appears in many related characters such as 口 (kǒu, mouth), 叫 (jiào, to call, to be called), 右 (yòu, (bound form) right).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 口 mouth13 strokesFrequency #2791口 semantic索 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to suck
  2. used in 囉嗦|啰嗦
  3. used in 哆嗦

Etymology & Origin

嗦

pictophoneticmouth

Decomposition: ⿰口索 (layout: left-right)

Components:口semantic索phonetic

Stroke Order

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

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
罗嗦luō suoerroneous variant of 囉唆|啰唆[luo1 suo5]
哆嗦duō suoto tremble
打哆嗦dǎ duō suoto tremble
嗦粉suō fěnto slurp noodles
啰里啰嗦luō li luō suolong-winded
啰嗦luō suovariant of 囉唆|啰唆[luo1 suo5]
6
Total compounds
17
As first character
83
As last character
0
As middle character

嗦 appears in 6 compound words: 17 as the first character, 83 as the last, and 0 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 嗦 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

啰luō
0.752306 co-occurrences
哆duō
0.640336 co-occurrences
啦lā
0.39036 co-occurrences
罗luó
0.28266 co-occurrences
希xī
0.27342 co-occurrences
少shǎo
0.26760 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

请嗦下这杯茶，解解渴再继续工作。

qǐng suō xià zhè bēi chá , xiè xiè kě zài jì xù gōng zuò .

Please have a sip of this tea to quench your thirst before continuing your work.

Character Family

口 Radical Family — Characters sharing the mouth radical

啊a哎āi哀āi唉āi叭bā吧ba哺bǔ嘈cáo唱chàng嘲cháo

Related Characters

口kǒu叫jiào右yòu号hào吃chī同tóng名míng后hòu吗ma吧ba

Homophones — Characters pronounced suō

缩suō所suǒ索suǒ锁suǒ

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 嗦 (suō) mean in Chinese?
嗦 (suō) primarily means "to suck." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2791 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 嗦 have?
嗦 is written with 13 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 嗦?
The radical associated with 嗦 is 口 (mouth). This radical appears in many characters related to mouth.
What are the components of 嗦?
嗦 is composed of: 口 (semantic), 索 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰口索 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 嗦?
Common words with 嗦 include: 罗嗦 (luō suo, "erroneous variant of 囉唆|啰唆[luo1 suo5]"); 哆嗦 (duō suo, "to tremble"); 打哆嗦 (dǎ duō suo, "to tremble"); 嗦粉 (suō fěn, "to slurp noodles"); 啰里啰嗦 (luō li luō suo, "long-winded"). There are over 6 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 嗦 (suō)?
Several characters share the pronunciation suō: 缩 (to shrink, to contract), 所 (actually), 索 (abbr. for 索馬里|索马里, Somalia), 锁 (to lock). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 嗦 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 嗦 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 嗦 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.