帚 (zhǒu): broom
帚 (zhǒu) is a Chinese character meaning “broom.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 彐 (structural), 冖 (structural) and 巾 (structural). It ranks #3031 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).
Etymologically pictographic, 帚 a hand 巾 holding a broom with the head 彐 held up. Its radical form 巾 (cloth) appears in many related characters such as 常 (cháng, always), 希 (xī, to hope), 帮 (bāng, to help).
Definitions
- broom
Etymology & Origin
pictographicA hand 巾 holding a broom with the head 彐 held up
Decomposition: ⿱彐⿱冖巾 (layout: top-bottom)
Stroke Order
Practice writing 帚 with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.
Words & Compounds
Common Compounds
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 扫帚noun | sào zhou | broom |
| 笤帚noun | tiáo zhou | whisk broom |
| 扫帚星noun | sào zhou xīng | comet |
| 敝帚千金phrase | bì zhǒu qiān jīn | lit. my worn-out broom, a thousand in gold (idiom) |
| 敝帚自珍phrase | bì zhǒu zì zhēn | to value the broom as one's own (idiom) |
| 筅帚noun | xiǎn zhǒu | (dialect) pot-scrubbing brush, made from bamboo strips |
| 炊帚noun | chuī zhou | pot-scrubbing brush, made from bamboo strips |
帚 appears in 7 compound words: 0 as the first character, 57 as the last, and 43 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 帚 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.
Idioms & Chengyu (2)
Example Sentences
帚字在日常生活中使用频率较低。
zhǒu zì zài rì cháng shēng huó zhōng shǐ yòng pín lǜ jiào dī .
The character "帚" is not used very often in everyday life.
它很大，也很亮，拖着长长的尾巴，像一把发光的扫帚，安静地挂在夜晚的树梢上。
tā hěn dà , yě hěn liàng , tuō zhe cháng cháng de wěi bā , xiàng yī bǎ fā guāng de sǎo zhǒu , ān jìng dì guà zài yè wǎn de shù shāo shàng .
It was large and bright, with a long tail trailing behind it, looking like a glowing broom, hanging quietly from the treetops in the night.
Character Family
Frequently Asked Questions
What does 帚 (zhǒu) mean in Chinese?
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Is 帚 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Practice writing 帚 with real-time feedback
Trace stroke sequences, hear spoken pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.