杂 (zá): mixed, miscellaneous, various, to mix

杂 (zá) is a Chinese character meaning “mixed.” Classified as HSK Level 4 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 九 (structural) and 木 (structural). It ranks #853 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. mixed
  2. miscellaneous
  3. various
  4. to mix

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6

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

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with 杂

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
杂志nounzá zhìmagazine4
复杂adjectivefù zácomplicated4

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
杂种nounzá zhǒnghybrid
杂货店nounzá huò diàngrocery store
杂耍nounzá shuǎa sideshow
杂碎nounzá suioffal
杂志社nounzá zhì shèmagazine publisher
杂技nounzá jìacrobatics
杂物nounzá wùjunk
杂念nounzá niàndistracting thoughts
嘈杂adjectivecáo zánoisy
杂草nounzá cǎoweeds
杂乱adjectivezá luànin a mess
打杂verbdǎ záto do odd jobs
杂交verbzá jiāoto hybridize
杂货nounzá huògroceries
大杂烩noundà zá huìmix-up
100
Total compounds
65
As first character
24
As last character
11
As middle character

杂 appears in 100 compound words: 65 as the first character, 24 as the last, and 11 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 杂 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

志zhì
0.64252,955 co-occurrences
复fù
0.61734,359 co-occurrences
掺chān
0.5851,259 co-occurrences
嘈cáo
0.534315 co-occurrences
货huò
0.5094,288 co-occurrences
夹jiā
0.477962 co-occurrences
耍shuǎ
0.474552 co-occurrences
搀chān
0.43340 co-occurrences
浆jiāng
0.400262 co-occurrences
刊kān
0.4002,318 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (8)

错综复杂cuòzōngfùzáHSK 5+

tangled and complicated; intricate

phrase
苛捐杂税kējuānzáshuìHSK 7+

exorbitant taxes

phrase
凌杂米盐líng zá mǐ yánHSK 4+

disordered and fragmentary

phrase
龙蛇混杂lóngshéhùnzáHSK 6+

good and bad people mixed up; wise and unwise huddled together

phrase
疑难杂症yínán zázhèngHSK 6+

intractable diseases; obscure diseases; intractable problems

noun
鱼龙混杂yúlónghùnzáHSK 6+

good and bad things or people being mixed together indiscriminately

phrase
杂乱无章záluàn wú zhāngHSK 4+

disorderly and chaotic

phrase
杂七杂八záqīzábāHSK 4+

jumbled up and assorted

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他的工作很繁杂,每天都要处理各种各样的事务。

Tā de gōngzuò hěn fánzá, měitiān dōu yào chǔlǐ gè zhǒng gè yàng de shìwù.

His work is very complicated; he has to deal with all kinds of affairs every day.

NewsFeb 2026

宫腔紫状回声要警惕了?是否为“杂乱回声”的误写需重视吗

gōng qiāng zǐ zhuàng huí shēng yāo jǐng tì le ? shì fǒu wéi zá luàn huí shēng de wù xiě xū chóng shì ma

Should we be vigilant about the purple echo of the uterine cavity? Is it a misspelling of "chaotic echo" that needs to be paid attention to?

NewsFeb 2026

每日杂志|新游乐场用家为本 打造“好玩城市” ...

měi rì zá zhì xīn yóu lè chǎng yòng jiā wéi běn dǎ zào hǎo wán chéng shì . . .

Daily Magazine|New Playground User-oriented to Create a "Fun City" ...

NewsFeb 2026

她退货国家地理杂志服饰“控被肉搜IG” 业者回应了

tā tuì huò guó jiā dì lǐ zá zhì fú shì kòng bèi ròu sōu yè zhě huí yīng le

She returned National Geographic magazine clothing "accused of being searched by meat IG" The industry responded

NewsFeb 2026

日本高龄评论家拒绝断舍离 杂物堆家中一招堵住女儿嘴

rì běn gāo líng píng lùn jiā jù jué duàn shě lí zá wù duī jiā zhōng yī zhāo dǔ zhù nǚ ér zuǐ

Japan's elderly critic refuses to break away from the clutter pile at home to block his daughter's mouth

NewsFeb 2026

...买后离家未归!24年后现身 子女心情五味杂陈

. . . mǎi hòu lí jiā wèi guī ! nián hòu xiàn shēn zǐ nǚ xīn qíng wǔ wèi zá chén

... After buying, he left home and did not return! Appeared 24 years later, and his children had mixed moods

Tatoeba

你有订阅任何杂志吗?

Nǐ yǒu dìngyuè rènhé zázhì ma?

Do you subscribe to any magazines?

Tatoeba

他迅速瞥了一眼杂志。

Tā xùnsù piē le yīyǎn zázhì.

He took a quick look at the magazine.

Tatoeba

这份杂志每个月出刊两次。

Zhè fèn zázhì měi gè yuè chū kān liǎng cì.

The magazine is issued twice a month.

Tatoeba

不要丢掉这本杂志。

Bù yào diūdiào zhè běn zázhì.

Don't throw away this magazine.

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced zá

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 杂 (zá) mean in Chinese?
杂 (zá) primarily means "mixed." It is classified as HSK Level 4, making it an upper-intermediate character. It ranks #853 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 杂 have?
杂 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 杂?
The radical associated with 杂 is 木 (tree). This radical appears in many characters related to tree.
What are the components of 杂?
杂 is composed of: 九 (structural), 木 (structural). Its IDS decomposition is ⿱九木 with a top-bottom layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 杂?
Common words with 杂 include: 杂志 (zá zhì, "magazine"); 复杂 (fù zá, "complicated"); 杂种 (zá zhǒng, "hybrid"); 杂货店 (zá huò diàn, "grocery store"); 杂耍 (zá shuǎ, "a sideshow"). There are over 100 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 杂 (zá)?
Several characters share the pronunciation zá: 砸 (to smash). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 杂 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
No. The simplified form is 杂 and the traditional form is 襍.

Practice writing 杂 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.