糟 (zāo) - Meaning, Stroke Order & Audio

糟

zāo[zao1]Tone 1

rotten

HSK 5

Guru Deep Dive

English · rotten

Cached lesson

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Topology:Left-right

Strokes:17

Writing Balance Rule: The left side (米 rice) must be narrow and compact, while the right side (曹) is wider and must accommodate multiple horizontal lines and a box structure without crowding the left.

1. Meaning

rotten, spoiled, in a bad state

dregs or residue from brewingpickled in wine or leesmessy or ruined

Adjective / NounNeutral / Colloquial#condition#quality#food and drink

Sample Usage

真糟糕！
zhēn zāo gāo!
How terrible! / What a mess!
这块肉已经糟了。
zhè kuài ròu yǐjīng zāo le.
This piece of meat has already gone bad.

2. Sound

/[tsɑʊ̯⁵⁵]/Tone: 55

糟

zāozao1

¯(55)

=zāo

Initial Consonant

Type: Unaspirated Dental Sibilant

Sounds like: ts sound as in 'tsets' or 'its'

Unaspirated

Airflow Tactile Test: No air puff (sounds like 'ds' in English 'cards'). Tissue still.

Tongue & Mouth Position: Tongue tip lightly touching the back of the lower front teeth to release an un-aspirated 'ts' sound.

Final Rhyme

Vowel Group: -a vowel group

Sounds like: -ao rhymes with 'ow' in 'cow'

Mouth Shape Guide: Pronounce as standalone vowel 'ow'.

Common Learner Trap: Keep vowel quality steady across all 4 tone contours.

Tone

T1 (55)

5 → 5 (55)

1st Tone (High-Flat)

Tone Pitch & Cadence: Tone 1 is a high, level pitch that matches a sustained musical high note or a flat, steady tone of voice.

👂

Listening trap: Do not confuse the unaspirated dental 'z' with the retroflex 'zh' or aspirated 'c'.

👋

Physical Tone Gesture: Keep your voice steady and high like a flat musical note held at the top of your vocal range.

3. Writing

Topology: Left-right · Strokes: 17 strokes

4. Components

Radical 米 · Rice radical (rice, grain)

Semantic Clue (形旁): 米 (indicates grain or food substance)

Phonetic Clue (声旁): 曹 (original sound: cáo)

Rice (米) mixed together with a crowd of officials or ingredients (曹) left sitting too long turns into fermented dregs or gets rotten (糟).

米 Rice or grain, providing the semantic base for food/mash
曹 Phonetic indicator providing the 'cao/zao' sound

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

9· Phonetic Root: 曹 (cáo)

5. History

Liushu category: Phono-semantic (形声)

Origin: Combined from the semantic element 米 (rice/grain) and the phonetic element 曹 (cáo), originally referring to the grain mash or dregs left over from wine making.

Semantic Evolution: From wine dregs and fermented mash, the meaning expanded to anything spoiled, rotten, or in a ruined, messy state (as in 糟糕 zāogāo).

Wine brewing in ancient China left behind thick nutrient-rich grains called dregs (糟), which were eaten by the poor or used in pickling.

6. Sinosphere

🇯🇵

Kanji (Japanese)

On: ソウ (sō)

7. Memory

Vivid Mnemonic Story

You left a bowl of RICE (米) out in a crowded ROOM of people (曹) for weeks until it became completely ROTTEN and turned into smelly DREGS (糟).

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

槽

cáotrough, manger, grooveReplaces rice (米) with wood (木) to form a wooden trough.

蹧

zāoto waste, squanderAdds the foot radical (足) for actions related to trampling or wasting.

Lookalikes & Traps (形近字)

曹(cáo)

曹 is just the phonetic component without the rice radical (米) on the left.

8. Mastery

Active Recall Challenge

今天出门忘带伞，还踩了一脚泥，真是太[___]了！

Clue: zāo gāo

Common Learner Pitfall

Confusing the tone 1 pronunciation zāo with tone 4 or forgetting the left-hand radical 米 when writing by hand.

Memory Prompts

Recognition: What does 糟 mean when seen in 糟糕 (zāogāo)?

Production: How do you write the character for 'rotten/messy' (zāo) using the rice radical?

糟zāorotten

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