diāo
verb HSK 7-9 #11,958

Meanings

  1. 1 to carve
  2. 2 to engrave
  3. 3 to sculpt

Examples

Tā zài mùtou shàng diāo le yī duǒ huā.
He carved a flower on the wood.
Zhè kuài yù diāo de hěn jīngxì.
This piece of jade is carved very delicately.

Tips

usage
can also be a noun meaning "eagle" (especially in classical/literary Chinese), but the carving meaning is far more common in modern usage.

Components

radical
zhuī
short-tailed bird
Right — short-tailed-bird radical, drawn with a tufted head and wings folded down. originally named the eagle or falcon, a bird of prey; the carving sense came later by extension from how a falconer's beak picks at things, with later semantic borrowing for sculpting in stone or wood.
phonetic
zhōu
circumference; cycle (here phonetic)
Left supplies the sound zhōu → diāo through a regular palatal shift. No semantic load. The same phonetic appears in to adjust, to wither, silk — knowing unlocks the diāo / tiáo / chóu cluster of readings.

Stroke Order

diāo