逗 (dòu): funny

Meanings

1 funny
2 amusing
3 to tease
4 to play with

Characters

逗

dòu

funny; to tease

Examples

他说话特别逗，大家都笑了。

Tā shuōhuà tèbié dòu, dàjiā dōu xiào le.

He talks in such a funny way that everyone laughed.

别逗小猫了，它要睡觉了。

Bié dòu xiǎo māo le, tā yào shuìjiào le.

Stop teasing the kitten, it wants to sleep.

你真逗！

Nǐ zhēn dòu!

You're so funny!

Tips

usage

As an adjective, 逗 is colloquial and common in spoken Chinese, meaning 'funny' or 'hilarious'. As a verb, it means 'to tease' or 'to amuse someone'.

memory

Think of 逗 as 'dou' sounding like 'do' — 'do something funny to make people laugh'.

Components

radical

辶 chuò

to walk; motion (variant of 辵)

Motion radical wrapping the bottom-left — the abbreviated form of 辵. 逗 originally meant 'to stop along the way, halt one's journey' — the motion that pauses. From 'tarrying' came the modern senses 'tease, banter, dot/comma' — playful pauses in speech or text. Same radical anchors 进 enter, 退 retreat, 远 far.

phonetic

豆 dòu

bean; ritual vessel (here phonetic)

Inner component 豆 supplies an exact phonetic match: dòu → dòu, no drift. 豆 originally pictured a tall stemmed ritual vessel (its 'bean' meaning is a later loan). Same phonetic gives 逗 dòu, 痘 dòu (smallpox), 斗 dǒu (peck measure) — a tight dòu family. Extra mnemonic: stopping for a bean-snack along the road.