嘲 (cháo): to mock

Meanings

1 to mock
2 to ridicule
3 to jeer at

Characters

嘲

cháo

to mock; to ridicule

Examples

他被同学嘲，心里很难过。

Tā bèi tóngxué cháo, xīnlǐ hěn nánguò.

He was mocked by his classmates and felt very upset.

诗人常被世俗所嘲。

Shīrén cháng bèi shìsú suǒ cháo.

Poets are often ridiculed by the mundane world.

Tips

register

嘲 is a classical or literary form. In modern usage, it typically appears in compounds: 嘲笑 (to mock/laugh at), 嘲弄 (to ridicule), 嘲讽 (to satirize). As a standalone verb it is rare in everyday speech.

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth

口 is the indexing mouth radical, a square drawing of an open mouth. It marks 嘲 as a speech-act word, alongside 叫 (shout), 吵 (quarrel), 唱 (sing), 讥 (mock). The mouth on the left signals: this verb is something done with the lips — here, mocking or jeering.

phonetic

朝 zhāo

morning; dynasty

朝 (zhāo) supplies the sound — initial preserved, rime drifted slightly with tone shift to second tone (cháo). Same phonetic powers 潮 (tide), 晁 (a surname). No semantic load here — purely the sound-anchor that pins down cháo among the mouth-radical mocking-and-jeering verbs.