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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
Words containing 草Character writing labAsk the AI tutor

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.

Words containing 草

Radical 艸 — other characters