拄 (zhǔ): to lean on, to prop on

拄 (zhǔ) is a Chinese character meaning “to lean on.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 扌 (semantic) and 主 (phonetic). It ranks #2990 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 拄 hand. 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 lean on
  2. to prop on

Etymology & Origin

拄

pictophonetichand

Decomposition: ⿰扌主 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
拄拐zhǔ guǎito be on crutches
1
Total compounds
100
As first character
0
As last character
0
As middle character

拄 appears in 1 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 拄 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

杖zhàng
0.696338 co-occurrences
拐guǎi
0.693259 co-occurrences
骨gǔ
0.478156 co-occurrences
着zhe
0.413140 co-occurrences
剑jiàn
0.40326 co-occurrences
棍gùn
0.38210 co-occurrences
著zhù
0.381156 co-occurrences
脊jǐ
0.37814 co-occurrences
腰yāo
0.35910 co-occurrences
脂zhī
0.35910 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

妈妈拄着孩子的手,慢慢地过马路。

mā mā zhǔ zhe hái zǐ de shǒu , màn màn dì guò mǎ lù .

Mom held her child's hand and slowly crossed the street.

少数派Sep 2026

邓世昌铜像拄着长剑,目光穿过笔直的现代马路,凝视刘公岛和曾经的北洋水师军港。

dèng shì chāng tóng xiàng zhǔ zhe cháng jiàn , mù guāng chuān guò bǐ zhí de xiàn dài mǎ lù , níng shì liú gōng dǎo hé céng jīng de běi yáng shuǐ shī jūn gǎng .

The bronze statue of Deng Shichang, leaning on a long sword, gazes across the straight, modern road toward Liugong Island and what was once the naval base of the Beiyang Fleet.

少数派Jun 2026

叫了半天,一个拄着拐杖的年轻男生才出来,带我们上楼。

jiào le bàn tiān , yī gè zhǔ zhe guǎi zhàng de nián qīng nán shēng cái chū lái , dài wǒ men shàng lóu .

After calling out for quite a while, a young man with a cane finally came out and led us upstairs.

中国新闻网·体育May 2026

他因单腿拄拐顽强踢球并展现出高超技艺,被外界称为“独腿球王”。

tā yīn dān tuǐ zhǔ guǎi wán qiáng tī qiú bìng zhǎn xiàn chū gāo chāo jì yì , bèi wài jiè chèn wéi dú tuǐ qiú wáng .

Because he plays soccer with determination while using a crutch on one leg and displays exceptional skill, he has been dubbed the “One-Legged Soccer King” by the public.

Tatoeba

自从我弄断了两条腿,我就拄着拐杖走路了。

Zìcóng wǒ nòng duàn le liǎng tiáo tuǐ, wǒ jiù zhǔ zhe guǎizhàng zǒulù le.

I'm on crutches since I broke both my legs.

Tatoeba

这个老人拄着一根拐杖走路。

Zhège lǎorén zhǔ zhe yī gēn guǎizhàng zǒu lù.

The old man walked with a stick.

Tatoeba

一个拄着拐杖的年轻女孩问汤姆他住在哪里。

Yī gè zhǔ zhe guǎizhàng de niánqīng nǚhái wèn Tāngmǔ tā zhù zài nǎlǐ.

A young girl on crutches asked Tom where he lived.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 扌 (hand) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced zhǔ

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 拄 (zhǔ) mean in Chinese?
拄 (zhǔ) primarily means "to lean on." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2990 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 拄 have?
拄 is written with 8 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 拄?
The radical associated with 拄 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 拄?
拄 is composed of: 扌 (semantic), 主 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌主 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 拄?
Common words with 拄 include: 拄拐 (zhǔ guǎi, "to be on crutches"). There are over 1 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 拄 (zhǔ)?
Several characters share the pronunciation zhǔ: 注 ((bound form) to pour into), 主 (owner), 住 (to live, to stay), 助 (to help), and 3 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 拄 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 拄 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 拄 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.