停 (tíng): to stop

停 (tíng) is a Chinese character meaning “to stop.” Classified as HSK Level 4 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 亻 (semantic) and 亭 (phonetic). It ranks #693 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 停 person. Its radical form 亻 (person) appears in many related characters such as 人 (rén, person), 什 (shén, what), 今 (jīn, now).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. to stop

Etymology & Origin

停

pictophoneticperson

Decomposition: ⿰亻亭 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

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

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with 停

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
停止verbtíng zhǐto stop4
停车verbtíng chēto pull up (stop one's vehicle)4
停车场nountíng chē chǎngparking lot4
暂停verbzàn tíngto suspend4
停留verbtíng liúto stay somewhere temporarily5

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
停下verbtíng xiàto stop
停手verbtíng shǒuto stop (what one is doing)
停电verbtíng diànto have a power failure
停职verbtíng zhíto suspend (sb) from duties
停火verbtíng huǒto cease fire
不停verbbù tíngincessant
停战verbtíng zhànto cease fire
停车位nountíng chē wèiparking space
停机verbtíng jī(of a machine) to stop
停顿verbtíng dùnto halt
停靠verbtíng kàoto call at
停滞verbtíng zhìstagnation
停机坪nountíng jī píngaircraft parking ground
停息verbtíng xīto stop
停泊verbtíng bóto anchor
83
Total compounds
72
As first character
18
As last character
10
As middle character

停 appears in 83 compound words: 72 as the first character, 18 as the last, and 10 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 停 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

靠kào
0.68265,480 co-occurrences
止zhǐ
0.604105,717 co-occurrences
暂zàn
0.58122,264 co-occurrences
泊bó
0.54712,488 co-occurrences
留liú
0.51632,324 co-occurrences
滞zhì
0.4753,137 co-occurrences
播bō
0.47339,304 co-occurrences
站zhàn
0.47160,150 co-occurrences
车chē
0.46235,110 co-occurrences
映yìng
0.45214,264 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (3)

留职停薪liú zhí tíng xīnHSK 6+

(Tw) leave of absence without pay

phrase
马不停蹄mǎbùtíngtí

to be busy non-stop

phrase
停滞不前tíngzhìbùqiánHSK 7+

to cease developing and be unable to progress; stagnant

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

由于设备故障,生产线已经停了两个小时。

Yóuyú shèbèi gùzhàng, shēngchǎnxiàn yǐjīng tíng le liǎng gè xiǎoshí.

Due to equipment failure, the production line has been stopped for two hours.

TvbsFeb 2026

买刮刮乐停不下来?4星座“赌性超强” 牡羊先冲再说...

mǎi guā guā lè tíng bù xià lái ? 4 xīng zuò dǔ xìng chāo qiáng mǔ yáng xiān chōng zài shuō . . .

Can't stop buying scratch cards? 4 constellations "super gambling" Aries rush first and then say...

WorldjournalFeb 2026

暴风雪来袭 纽约市周一停课停学 19年来首见

bào fēng xuě lái xí niǔ yuē shì zhōu yī tíng kè tíng xué 1 9 nián lái shǒu jiàn

The blizzard hit New York City on Monday and closed classes for the first time in 19 years

Investing 香港Feb 2026

加拿大航空因安全局势暂停墨西哥巴亚尔塔港营运

jiā ná dà háng kōng yīn ān quán jú shì zàn tíng mò xī gē bā yà ěr tǎ gǎng yíng yùn

Air Canada suspended operations in the port of Vallarta, Mexico due to the security situation

WorldjournalFeb 2026

俄军打击乌能源设施 乌克兰多地大面积停电

é jūn dǎ jī wū néng yuán shè shī wū kè lán duō dì dà miàn jī tíng diàn

Russian forces hit Ukrainian energy facilities Large-scale power outages in many places in Ukraine

百度新闻Feb 2026

请停留3秒 为这5位空军勇士献花!今天是万家...

qǐng tíng liú miǎo wéi zhè wèi kōng jūn yǒng shì xiàn huā ! jīn tiān shì mò jiā . . .

Please stop for 3 seconds to lay flowers for these 5 Air Force warriors! Today is Vanguard...

Tatoeba

我能把我的车停在这儿吗?

Wǒ néng bǎ wǒ de chē tíng zài zhèr ma?

Can I park my car here?

Tatoeba

我们怎样才能停止战争?

Wǒmen zěnyàng cáinéng tíngzhǐ zhànzhēng?

How can we abolish war?

Tatoeba

这列火车在昆山车站停车吗?

Zhè liè huǒchē zài Kūnshān chēzhàn tíngchē ma?

Does this train stop at Kunshan station?

Tatoeba

请问有没有飞往纽约的不停站航班?

Qǐngwèn yǒuméiyǒu fēi wǎng Niǔyuē de bù tíngzhàn hángbān?

Is there a nonstop flight to New York?

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 亻 (person) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced tíng

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 停 (tíng) mean in Chinese?
停 (tíng) primarily means "to stop." It is classified as HSK Level 4, making it an upper-intermediate character. It ranks #693 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 停 have?
停 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 停?
The radical associated with 停 is 亻 (person). This radical appears in many characters related to person.
What are the components of 停?
停 is composed of: 亻 (semantic), 亭 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰亻亭 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 停?
Common words with 停 include: 停止 (tíng zhǐ, "to stop"); 停下 (tíng xià, "to stop"); 停车 (tíng chē, "to pull up (stop one's vehicle)"); 停车场 (tíng chē chǎng, "parking lot"); 暂停 (zàn tíng, "to suspend"). There are over 83 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 停 (tíng)?
Several characters share the pronunciation tíng: 婷 (graceful), 庭 (courtyard, family), 厅 ((reception) hall), 挺 (straight), and 3 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 停 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 停 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 停 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.