草 cǎo — grass, straw; rough, careless; a draft, a rough copy; the cursive script
cǎo (third tone, dipping)
grass, straw; rough, careless; a draft, a rough copy; the cursive script
9 strokesRadical 艸Frequency #445
Pinyin
- cǎo (third tone, dipping)
grass, straw; rough, careless; a draft, a rough copy; the cursive script
Character breakdown
Ideographic description
⿱艹早The sequence reads left to right and describes how the parts are arranged.
- 艹meaning partno entry yetThe grass radical — itself the reduced form of 艸, the original word for grass.
- 早sound partno entry yet早 zǎo for the sound; on its own it means early.
Mnemonic
Grass 艹 over 早 for the sound. The word for grass was originally written 艸, the very radical on top; 草 first wrote the name of a plant used for dye and then took the job over, leaving 艸 to head the dictionary section. From grass comes rough and unfinished: 草稿 a draft, and 草书, the running script that looks like grass bending in wind.
A memory aid written by HSK Guide editors. It is not an etymology and does not describe the historical origin of the character.