HSK 5 · Adjectives

狡猾 jiǎohuá “crafty” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 狡猾 means

  1. crafty
  2. cunning
  3. sly

How to say 狡猾

  • Pitch chart of the third tone: dips low then rises, 2 to 1 to 4 on the five-level scale狡jiǎo3rd tone, dipping
  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale猾huá2nd tone, rising

狡猾 in a sentence

  1. 你真狡猾。

    Nǐ zhēn jiǎohuá.

    You’re so sly.

    Sentence #1066696 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  2. 人们说，狐狸比其他动物要狡猾。

    Rénmen shuō, húli bǐ qítā dòngwù yào jiǎohuá.

    People say that the fox is more cunning than other animals.

    Sentence #2307240 from Tatoeba

How 狡猾 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 狡 (jiǎo) with each of its parts in a different colour
狡jiǎocrafty
  • 犭dog form of 犬 · quǎnMeaning part
  • 交to connect · jiāoSound part

犭 hints at the meaning (dog); 交 (jiāo) hints at the sound. Compare it with jiǎo.

The character 猾 (huá) with each of its parts in a different colour
猾huásly
  • 犭dog form of 犬 · quǎnMeaning part
  • 骨bone · gǔSound part

犭 hints at the meaning (dog); 骨 (gǔ) hints at the sound. Compare it with huá.

How to write 狡猾

狡 9 strokes · 猾 12 strokes

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

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

Words related to 狡猾

More words: Adjectives

坚决jiānjué · firm坚强jiānqiáng · staunch艰巨jiānjù · arduous艰苦jiānkǔ · difficult结实jiēshi · sturdy紧急jǐnjí · urgent谨慎jǐnshèn · cautious巨大jùdà · huge

FAQs

狡猾 (jiǎohuá) means “crafty” or “cunning”. It is an HSK 5 word.
Say it jiǎohuá: jiǎo with a 3rd tone, then huá with a 2nd tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 狡猾 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type jiaohua with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 狡猾 from the suggestions. Typing jiaohua into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
狡猾 is an HSK 5 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.