托 (tuō): to hold up in one's hand, to support with one's palm, sth serving as a support: a prop, a rest (e.g. arm rest), (bound form) a shill

托 (tuō) is a Chinese character meaning “to hold up in one's hand.” Classified as HSK Level 6 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 扌 (structural) and 乇 (structural). It ranks #799 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 托 using one's hands 扌 for support 乇; 乇 also provides the pronunciation. Its radical form 扌 (hand) appears in many related characters such as 手 (shǒu, hand), 打 (dǎ, hit, make), 找 (zhǎo, to look for).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. to hold up in one's hand
  2. to support with one's palm
  3. sth serving as a support: a prop, a rest (e.g. arm rest)
  4. (bound form) a shill

Etymology & Origin

托

ideographicUsing one's hands 扌 for support 乇; 乇 also provides the pronunciation

Decomposition: ⿰扌乇 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6

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

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with 托

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
委托verbwěi tuōto entrust6
摩托车nounmó tuō chē(loanword) motorbike6
托运verbtuō yùnto consign (goods)6

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
拜托verbbài tuōto request sb to do sth
托尼proper-nountuō ní(name) Tony
委托人wěi tuō rén(law) client
托马斯proper-nountuō mǎ sīThomas (male name)
摩托nounmó tuō(loanword) motor
信托verbxìn tuōto entrust
托举tuō jǔto lift and support
托儿所nountuō ér suǒnursery
寄托verbjì tuōto entrust (to sb)
维克托proper-nounwéi kè tuōVictor (name)
托付verbtuō fùto entrust
布里斯托bù lǐ sī tuōBristol
乌托邦nounwū tuō bāng(loanword) utopia
托盘nountuō pántray
托管verbtuō guǎntrusteeship
101
Total compounds
35
As first character
50
As last character
15
As middle character

托 appears in 101 compound words: 35 as the first character, 50 as the last, and 15 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 托 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

酯zhǐ
0.61711 co-occurrences
斯sī
0.55598,414 co-occurrences
摩mó
0.54418,742 co-occurrences
裹guǒ
0.4972,138 co-occurrences
克kè
0.48142,476 co-occurrences
马mǎ
0.45318,224 co-occurrences
勒lè
0.44912,222 co-occurrences
尔ěr
0.44525,580 co-occurrences
夫fū
0.43216,438 co-occurrences
烘hōng
0.429476 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (5)

布里斯托bù lǐ sī tuōHSK 7+

Bristol

phrase
烘云托月hōng yún tuō yuèHSK 7+

lit. to shade in the clouds to offset the moon (idiom); fig. a foil; a contrasting character to a main hero

phrase
曼尼托巴Mànnítuōbā

Manitoba (a province in western Canada)

托尔斯泰Tuō'ěrsītàiHSK 7+

a transliteration of the Russian surname Толсто́й (Tolstój), Tolstoy

托木尔峰Tuōmù'ěr FēngHSK 6+

Jengish Chokusu (the highest mountain in the Tian Shan mountain system, located on the China-Kyrgyzstan border)

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他托起袖子,开始认真地打扫房间。

tā tuō qǐ xiù zǐ , kāi shǐ rèn zhēn dì dǎ sǎo fáng jiān .

He rolled up his sleeves and began to clean the room thoroughly.

Investing 香港Feb 2026

康托·菲茨杰拉德基于AI需求前景重申英伟达股...

kāng tuō 菲 茨 jié lā dé jī yú A I xū qiú qián jǐng chóng shēn yīng wěi dá gǔ . . .

Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated Nvidia stocks based on AI demand outlook...

Investing 香港Feb 2026

沃尔顿家族控股信托出售1.598亿美元沃尔玛(WMT)股票

wò ěr dùn jiā zú kòng gǔ xìn tuō chū shòu 1 . 5 9 8 yì měi yuán wò ěr 玛 ( W M T ) gǔ piào

Walton Family Holding Trust sells $159.8 million in Walmart (WMT) stock

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

中国信托60周年 致敬棒球拚劲

zhōng guó xìn tuō 6 0 zhōu nián zhì jìng bàng qiú 拚 jìn

The 60th anniversary of China Trust pays tribute to the hard work of baseball

鉅亨網 - 財經新聞、全球指數、股市報價、商品行情、理財投資Feb 2026

反乌托邦AI报告震撼华尔街 支付与软体股全面承...

fǎn wū tuō bāng A I bào gào zhèn hàn huá ěr jiē zhī fù yǔ ruǎn tǐ gǔ quán miàn chéng . . .

Dystopian AI report shocked Wall Street, payment and software stocks fully undertaken...

InvestingFeb 2026

AI引发的反乌托邦就业危机:Nvidia的又一个催化剂?

A I yǐn fā de fǎn wū tuō bāng jiù yè wēi jī : N v i d i a de yòu yī gè cuī huà jì ?

AI-Induced Dystopian Jobs Crisis: Another Catalyst for Nvidia?

Tatoeba

符拉迪沃斯托克是俄罗斯的一个城市。

Fúlādíwòsītuōkè shì éluósī de yī gè chéngshì.

Vladivostok is a city in Russia.

Tatoeba

我昨天拜访了托尼。

Wǒ zuótiān bàifǎng le tuō ní.

I visited Tony yesterday.

Tatoeba

乌兰巴托是蒙古的首都。

Wūlánbātuō shì Měnggǔ de shǒudū.

Ulaanbaatar is the capital of Mongolia.

Tatoeba

托雷斯把球踢给了队友。

Tuō léi sī bǎ qiú tī gěi le duìyǒu.

Torres booted the ball to his teammate.

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced tuō

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 托 (tuō) mean in Chinese?
托 (tuō) primarily means "to hold up in one's hand." It is classified as HSK Level 6, making it an advanced character. It ranks #799 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 托 and 下?
托 (tuō) and 下 (xià) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 托 (up) vs 下 (down).
How many strokes does 托 have?
托 is written with 6 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 托?
The radical associated with 托 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 托?
托 is composed of: 扌 (structural), 乇 (structural). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌乇 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 托?
Common words with 托 include: 拜托 (bài tuō, "to request sb to do sth"); 托尼 (tuō ní, "(name) Tony"); 委托 (wěi tuō, "to entrust"); 委托人 (wěi tuō rén, "(law) client"); 摩托车 (mó tuō chē, "(loanword) motorbike"). There are over 101 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 托 (tuō)?
Several characters share the pronunciation tuō: 脱 (to shed), 拖 (to drag), 妥 (suitable), 拓 (to make a rubbing (e.g. of an inscription)), and 2 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 托 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 托 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 托 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.