躁 (zào): impatient

Meanings

1 impatient
2 hot-tempered
3 restless

Characters

躁

zào

impatient; restless

Examples

天气太热了，大家都很烦躁。

Tiānqì tài rè le, dàjiā dōu hěn fánzào.

The weather is too hot, everyone is irritable.

别急躁，慢慢来。

Bié jízào, mànmanlái.

Don't be impatient, take it slowly.

Tips

mistakes

Don't confuse 躁 (zào, restless/impatient) with 燥 (zào, dry). They sound identical but have different meanings. 烦躁 = irritable, 干燥 = dry. Mnemonic: 躁 has 足 (foot) — restless feet; 燥 has 火 (fire) — dry from heat.

usage

Common compounds: 急躁 (jízào, impatient), 烦躁 (fánzào, irritable), 浮躁 (fúzào, superficial and restless), 狂躁 (kuángzào, manic).

Components

radical

足 zú

foot; leg

Left foot radical — the indexing element, picturing a leg with knee and foot. It puts 躁 in the motion-of-the-feet family alongside 跑 (run), 跳 (jump), 踢 (kick). Here the connection is restless, agitated pacing: feet that cannot stay still, the bodily mark of impatience.

phonetic

喿 zào

chirping of many birds (here phonetic)

Right 喿 supplies the sound zào with no drift, and adds a faint semantic flavour: three mouths over a tree pictures a flock of birds clamouring — exactly the kind of noisy fidgeting that characterises impatience. Same phonetic appears in 噪 (clamour), 操 (handle), 燥 (dry-irritated).