to tease, play, or joke
English · to tease, play, or joke
to tease or provoke playfully
- 你别逗我了。Nǐ bié dòu wǒ le.Don't tease me / You must be kidding me.
- 这只小猫真逗。Zhè zhī xiǎo māo zhēn dòu.This little kitten is so funny and amusing.
Topology: Left-right · Strokes: 10 strokes
Writing Balance Rule: The left component (辶) acts as a walking base wrapping underneath and supporting the right component (豆). Keep the right side compact and elevated so the walking canopy underneath has room to curve gracefully.
Radical 辶 · Walking Base Radical (Movement, path, or motion)
Semantic Clue (形旁): 辶 (Indicates movement, action, or leading someone along)
Phonetic Clue (声旁): 豆 (original sound: dou)
You are walking along a path (辶) carrying a bowl of beans (豆), teasing your friends by tossing them playfully.
- 辶 Walking base / movement
- 豆 Bean / phonetic sound clue
Phonetic Family (形声字家族)
9· Phonetic Root: 豆 (dòu)Origin: Combined from the walking radical (辶) for movement and (豆) which originally depicted an ancient ritual food vessel containing beans. Over time, the meaning shifted from movement around vessels to playing, teasing, and joking.
Semantic Evolution: Originally referring to movement around ritual vessels, it evolved to mean lingering or staying, and later acquired colloquial senses of teasing, amusing, and making jokes.
- The character is heavily used in modern Mandarin internet slang for funny things.
While out for a WALK (辶) carrying a basket of BEANS (豆), you start TEASING and JOKING with passersby, making everyone laugh.
dòuConfusing the tone contour (Tone 4 sharp fall) with Tone 3, or forgetting to include the walking radical 辶 when hand-writing.
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