HSK 6 · Adjectives

残酷 cánkù “cruel” in Chinese

Traditional 殘酷

What 残酷 means

  1. cruel
  2. brutal
  3. harsh
  4. merciless

How to say 残酷

  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale残cán2nd tone, rising
  • Pitch chart of the fourth tone: falls from high to low, 5 to 1 on the five-level scale酷kù4th tone, falling

残酷 in a sentence

  1. 对动物来说这不是什么残酷的事情。

    Duì dòngwù lái shuō zhè bú shì shénme cánkù de shìqing.

    For animals, there’s nothing cruel about this.

    Sentence #1659167 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

How 残酷 is built

Each colour is one part of the character. Parts repeat across thousands of characters, so learning them makes new words easier. See all 214 in our radicals chart.

The character 残 (cán) with each of its parts in a different colour
残cánto destroy
  • 歹death · dǎiMeaning part
  • 戋small · jiānSound part

歹 hints at the meaning (death); 戋 (jiān) hints at the sound. Compare it with cán.

The character 酷 (kù) with each of its parts in a different colour
酷kùruthless
  • 酉wine vessel · yǒuMeaning part
  • 告to tell · gàoSound part

酉 hints at the meaning (wine vessel); 告 (gào) hints at the sound. Compare it with kù.

How to write 残酷

残 9 strokes · 酷 14 strokes

Watch the order, then press Try writing it and draw each stroke in the grid. Each stroke is checked as you go.

残酷 (cánkù) stroke order chart: each stroke of the characters in the order you write them
Stroke order chart for 残酷 (cánkù). Red marks the next stroke, so you can copy it onto paper one step at a time.

Words related to 残酷

Words with 残

残疾cánjí · disability残留cánliú · to remain摧残cuīcán · to ruin残忍cánrěn · cruel

Words with 酷

冷酷lěngkù · cold-hearted

More words: Adjectives

不像话búxiànghuà · unreasonable不相上下bùxiāngshàngxià · equally matched苍白cāngbái · pale仓促cāngcù · hurried灿烂cànlàn · brilliant残忍cánrěn · cruel草率cǎoshuài · careless嘈杂cáozá · noisy

FAQs

残酷 (cánkù) means “cruel” or “brutal”. It is an HSK 6 word.
Say it cánkù: cán with a 2nd tone, then kù with a 4th tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
In Traditional characters, used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, 残酷 is written 殘酷. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type canku with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 残酷 from the suggestions. Typing canku into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
残酷 is an HSK 6 word in the HSK 2.0 word lists.

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Sources: meaning and pinyin checked by a native Mandarin teacher against the official HSK lists. Extra meanings from CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Example sentences from Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR). Character parts and stroke order from Make Me a Hanzi.