捂 (wǔ): to enclose, to cover with the hand (one's eyes, nose or ears), to cover up (an affair)

捂 (wǔ) is a Chinese character meaning “to enclose.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 扌 (structural) and 吾 (structural). It ranks #2794 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 捂 to resist 吾 by hand 扌; 吾 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).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 扌 hand10 strokesFrequency #2794扌 structural吾 structural

Definitions

  1. to enclose
  2. to cover with the hand (one's eyes, nose or ears)
  3. to cover up (an affair)

Etymology & Origin

捂

ideographicTo resist 吾 by hand 扌; 吾 also provides the pronunciation

Decomposition: ⿰扌吾 (layout: left-right)

Components:扌structural吾structural

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
捂住wǔ zhùto cover (typically by placing a hand over sb's mouth, nose or ears etc)
捂脸wǔ liǎnto cover one's face with one's hand(s)
2
Total compounds
100
As first character
0
As last character
0
As middle character

捂 appears in 2 compound words: 100 as the first character, 0 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 捂 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

脸liǎn
0.531114 co-occurrences
嘴zuǐ
0.510186 co-occurrences
窒zhì
0.48630 co-occurrences
鼻bí
0.45796 co-occurrences
枕zhěn
0.45136 co-occurrences
住zhù
0.449447 co-occurrences
朵duǒ
0.44872 co-occurrences
肚dù
0.44636 co-occurrences
胸xiōng
0.41760 co-occurrences
耳ěr
0.39890 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他捂了一个电话，约朋友晚上一起吃饭。

tā wǔ le yī gě diàn huà , yāo péng yǒu wǎn shǎng yī qǐ chī fàn .

He made a phone call and arranged to meet a friend for dinner that evening.

中国新闻网_梳理天下新闻Mar 2026

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chūn wǔ yīng gāi zěn má wǔ ? chóng diǎn guān zhù nǎ xiē bù wèi ? yī wén . . .

How Should You "Stay Warm" in Spring? Which Body Parts Should You Focus On? A Guide...

Tatoeba

她捂着嘴，笑得跟个小女生似的。

Tā wǔ zhe zuǐ, xiào de gēn gè xiǎonǚ shēng shìde.

She laughed the way schoolgirls do, with her hand over her mouth.

Tatoeba

她用手捂住了电话的话筒。

Tā yòng shǒu wǔzhù le diànhuà de huàtǒng.

She covered the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand.

Tatoeba

汤姆用他的手捂住了他的脸。

Tāngmǔ yòng tā de shǒu wǔzhù le tā de liǎn.

Tom covered his face with his hands.

Tatoeba

你咳嗽、打喷嚏或打哈欠的时候要捂住你的嘴。

Nǐ késou, dǎpēntì huò dǎ hāqian de shíhou yào wǔzhù nǐ de zuǐ.

Cover your mouth when you cough, sneeze, or yawn.

Character Family

扌 Radical Family — Characters sharing the hand radical

报bào才cái打dǎ护hù换huàn拉lā拿ná手shǒu挺tǐng找zhǎo

Related Characters

手shǒu打dǎ找zhǎo拿ná才cái护hù报bào拉lā挺tǐng换huàn

Homophones — Characters pronounced wǔ

乌wū污wū屋wū五wǔ午wǔ武wǔ舞wǔ务wù物wù误wù

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 捂 (wǔ) mean in Chinese?
捂 (wǔ) primarily means "to enclose." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2794 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 捂 and 下?
捂 (wǔ) and 下 (xià) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 捂 (up) vs 下 (down).
How many strokes does 捂 have?
捂 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 捂?
The radical associated with 捂 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 捂?
捂 is composed of: 扌 (structural), 吾 (structural). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌吾 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 捂?
Common words with 捂 include: 捂住 (wǔ zhù, "to cover (typically by placing a hand over sb's mouth, nose or ears etc)"); 捂脸 (wǔ liǎn, "to cover one's face with one's hand(s)"). There are over 2 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 捂 (wǔ)?
Several characters share the pronunciation wǔ: 乌 (abbr. for country names that begin with 烏|乌: Ukraine 烏克蘭|乌克兰, Uzbekistan 烏茲別克斯坦|乌兹别克斯坦 etc), 污 (dirty), 屋 ((bound form) house), 五 (five), and 6 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 捂 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 捂 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 捂 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.