抱
Tap the pinyin to hear it
to hold; to carry (in one's arms); to hug; to embrace; to surround; to cherish; (coll.) (of clothes) to fit nicely
- HSK 3.0
- Level 4
- Old HSK
- Level 4
- Strokes
- 8
- Radical
- 手 +5
- Structure
- Left–right 左右
- Traditional
- 抱
- Common rank
- #1,395
- Unicode
- U+62B1
Sound it out + =
Formation & memory
Break the character into parts you already know.
How 抱 is formed
Ideographic compound (会意字)
To wrap 包 in one's arms 扌; 包 also provides the pronunciation
How to remember it
embrace · Heisig RSH #589
fingers + 包 wrap
Keyword method from Heisig's Remembering Simplified Hanzi.
Words with 抱
The most common words first — learning a character in context makes it stick.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 平时不烧香，临时抱佛脚 | (lit.) to never burn incense when all's well, but clutch Buddha's feet in a crisis (prover… | |
| 打抱不平 | (idiom) to aid sb suffering an injustice; to fight for justice | |
| 抱打不平 | see 打抱不平[da3 bao4 bu4 ping2] | |
| 抱成一团 | to band together; to gang up; to stick together | |
| 抱不平 | to be outraged by an injustice (done to sb else) | |
| 公主抱 | to carry sb the way grooms carry brides across the threshold | |
| 临时抱佛脚 | (idiom) see 抱佛腳|抱佛脚[bao4 fo2 jiao3] | |
| 背着抱着一般重 | lit. whether one carries it on one's back or in one's arms, it's equally heavy (idiom); fi… | |
| 抱头 | to put one's hands behind one's head, fingers interlaced; to hold one's head in one's hand… | |
| 抱有 | to have (aspirations, suspicions etc) | |
| 合抱 | to wrap one's arm around (used to describe the girth of a tree trunk) | |
| 抱石 | (sports) bouldering | |
| 抱佛脚 | (fig.) to scramble to make up for a lack of preparation; to make a frantic, last-ditch eff… | |
| 抱病 | to be ill; to be in poor health | |
| 抱定 | to hold on firmly; to cling (to a belief); stubbornly | |
| 抱死 | (of a wheel during braking) to lock up | |
| 抱大腿 | (coll.) to cling to sb influential or famous | |
| 环抱 | to encircle; to surround; to embrace | |
| 抱恨终天 | (idiom) to harbor regrets for a lifetime | |
| 抱团 | to band together; to team up |