吵 (chǎo): noisy

Meanings

1 noisy
2 to quarrel
3 to argue

Characters

吵

chǎo

noisy; to quarrel

Contains 口 (mouth) radical — quarreling involves mouths.

Examples

外面太吵了。

Wàimian tài chǎo le.

It's too noisy outside.

不要吵，孩子在睡觉。

Bùyào chǎo, háizi zài shuìjiào.

Don't be noisy; the child is sleeping.

他们又吵起来了。

Tāmen yòu chǎo qǐlai le.

They started quarreling again.

Tips

usage

吵 can mean noisy (太吵了, too noisy) or to quarrel (吵架, to quarrel; 吵了一架, had a fight). It describes both the sound level and the conflict.

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth

Left radical 口 marks 吵 as a mouth-action: making noise, quarreling, disturbing the peace with loud talk. Same mouth radical groups 吵 with the family of vocal-noise verbs — 喊 (shout), 叫 (call out), 嚷 (yell), 喝 (drink/yell) — distinguishing vocal disturbances from quieter mental states.

phonetic

少 shǎo

few; little

Right phonetic 少 supplies the sound — shǎo shifted to chǎo through onset retroflexion. There is also faint ironic semantic flavour: a noisy quarrel often involves 'a little of much' — many small voices stacked together. Same phonetic in 抄 (chāo, copy), 炒 (chǎo, stir-fry), 钞 (chāo, banknote) — all sharing the chāo/chǎo rime.