挑 (tiǎo): to provoke

Meanings

1 to provoke
2 to incite; to stir up
3 to raise; to lift up
4 to poke; to prick

Characters

挑

tiǎo

to provoke

Examples

别挑他，他心情不好。

Bié tiǎo tā, tā xīnqíng bù hǎo.

Don't provoke him, he's in a bad mood.

他用棍子挑起帘子。

Tā yòng gùnzi tiǎo qǐ liánzi.

He used a stick to lift the curtain.

用针把刺挑出来。

Yòng zhēn bǎ cì tiǎo chūlái.

Use a needle to pick out the thorn.

Tips

usage

Third-tone 挑 runs two related lines: a physical 'lift / pry / poke with a thin pointed thing' (raise a curtain on a stick, dig out a splinter) and the figurative 'stir up / provoke' that grew from it. Most everyday vocabulary uses the figurative line: 挑战 (challenge), 挑衅 (provoke), 挑拨 (incite), 挑逗 (tease), 挑起 (stir up).

memory

Mnemonic split: tiāo (flat tone) = flat carrying-pole on the shoulder, choosing items. tiǎo (dipping tone) = the stick dips down and flicks UP — lifting a curtain, prying out a splinter, or jabbing someone into a fight. The dip-and-flick motion is the bridge between the literal 'lift with a thin stick' and the figurative 'provoke'.

Components

radical

扌 shǒu

hand (left-side form of 手)

Hand radical on the left — the indexing semantic. 挑 covers picking, selecting, and carrying on a shoulder-pole — all done with the hand. The 扌 unifies these senses under the hand-action family alongside 拣 (pick), 选 (choose's hand-cousin), 担 (shoulder-carry), 拨 (poke aside).

phonetic

兆 zhào

omen; trillion (here phonetic)

Right component supplies the sound: zhào shifted to tiāo / tiǎo with significant initial drift. 兆 originally pictured cracks on a heated tortoise shell read for divination omens. As a phonetic it also drives 跳 (jump), 桃 (peach), 逃 (flee) — a tao/tiao cluster sharing the same crack-pattern silhouette on the right.