xiào
noun #8,450

Meanings

  1. 1 effect; result
  2. 2 to imitate

Examples

Zhège yào hěn yǒuxiào.
This medicine is very effective.
Gōngzuò xiàolǜ hěn gāo.
Work efficiency is very high.
Xiàoguǒ búcuò.
The results are not bad.

Tips

usage
is used in: 效果 (effect/result), 有效 (effective), 效率 (efficiency), 效仿 (to imitate), 功效 (efficacy). Very common in work and academic contexts.

Components

radical
tap; strike (radical form of 攴)
Right-side rap radical, a hand holding a stick — the indexing radical. It puts in the action / effect family: to teach (strike to instruct), to change, governance. Here it gives the sense of actively producing a result — imitating or carrying out — yielding 'effect, efficacy, to emulate'.
phonetic
jiāo
to cross; hand over (here phonetic)
Left supplies the sound — jiāo shifts to xiào through a regular jiao/xiao alternation seen across this phonetic family ( xiào school, jiào to compare). itself depicts crossed legs, hence the 'crossing' meaning, which here is purely a sound clue.

Stroke Order

xiào