琢 (zhuó): to cut (gems), used in 琢磨, Taiwan pr.

琢 (zhuó) is a Chinese character meaning “to cut (gems).” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 王 (semantic) and 豖 (phonetic). It ranks #2703 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 琢 jade. Its radical form 王 (jade) appears in many related characters such as 玩 (wán, to play), 现 (xiàn, to appear), 班 (bān, team).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 王 jade12 strokesFrequency #2703王 semantic豖 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to cut (gems)
  2. used in 琢磨
  3. Taiwan pr.

Etymology & Origin

琢

pictophoneticjade

Decomposition: ⿰王豖 (layout: left-right)

Components:王semantic豖phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
琢磨zhuó móto carve and polish (jade)
雕琢diāo zhuóto sculpt
精雕细琢jīng diāo xì zhuósee 精雕細刻|精雕细刻[jing1 diao1 xi4 ke4]
切磋琢磨qiē cuō zhuó mólit. cutting and polishing (idiom)
4
Total compounds
25
As first character
50
As last character
25
As middle character

琢 appears in 4 compound words: 25 as the first character, 50 as the last, and 25 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 琢 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

磨mó
0.6534,230 co-occurrences
雕diāo
0.5722,712 co-occurrences
磋cuō
0.509198 co-occurrences
玉yù
0.4631,548 co-occurrences
精jīng
0.4051,074 co-occurrences
细xì
0.395432 co-occurrences
崎qí
0.381384 co-occurrences
杨yáng
0.377366 co-occurrences
茂mào
0.375234 co-occurrences
藤téng
0.365426 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (2)

精雕细琢jīng diāo xì zhuóHSK 7+

see 精雕細刻|精雕细刻[jing1 diao1 xi4 ke4]

phrase

Showing 1 of 2 idioms containing 琢.

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

我在字典里查到了琢字的详细解释。

wǒ zài zì diǎn lǐ chá dào le zhuó zì de xiáng xì xiè shì .

I looked up the detailed explanation of the character "琢" in the dictionary.

Character Family

王 Radical Family — Characters sharing the jade radical

玻bō璀cuǐ瑰guī环huán璃lí理lǐ玫méi球qiú瑞ruì琐suǒ

Related Characters

玩wán现xiàn班bān球qiú王wáng理lǐ环huán玉yù玻bō珍zhēn

Homophones — Characters pronounced zhuó

拙zhuō捉zhuō桌zhuō灼zhuó卓zhuó浊zhuó酌zhuó

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 琢 (zhuó) mean in Chinese?
琢 (zhuó) primarily means "to cut (gems)." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2703 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 琢 have?
琢 is written with 12 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 琢?
The radical associated with 琢 is 王 (jade). This radical appears in many characters related to jade.
What are the components of 琢?
琢 is composed of: 王 (semantic), 豖 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰王豖 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 琢?
Common words with 琢 include: 琢磨 (zhuó mó, "to carve and polish (jade)"); 雕琢 (diāo zhuó, "to sculpt"); 精雕细琢 (jīng diāo xì zhuó, "see 精雕細刻|精雕细刻[jing1 diao1 xi4 ke4]"); 切磋琢磨 (qiē cuō zhuó mó, "lit. cutting and polishing (idiom)"). There are over 4 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 琢 (zhuó)?
Several characters share the pronunciation zhuó: 拙 (awkward), 捉 (to clutch), 桌 (table, desk), 灼 (to burn), and 3 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 琢 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 琢 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

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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.