sāo
adjective #6,851

Meanings

  1. 1 flirtatious
  2. 2 coquettish
  3. 3 foul-smelling
  4. 4 literary (archaic)

Examples

Tā juéde zhège wèidào hěn sāo.
He thought the smell was foul.
Bié nàme sāo, zhèngjīng yīdiǎn.
Stop being so flirtatious, be more serious.

Tips

culture
In classical Chinese, referred to the literary tradition of (Lí Sāo), an ancient poem by Qu Yuan. In modern slang, it means flirtatious or showy.
mistakes
can be offensive depending on context. As slang it means 'flirty/showy,' but calling someone directly is rude.

Components

radical
horse
Horse radical on the left, simplified from . The original sense of was a horse stamping and twitching, restless from the fleas on its hide. The radical anchors alongside other horse verbs like (ride), (gallop), (steed).
phonetic
zǎo
flea
Right side (flea) gives the sound (zǎo → sāo, sibilant drift) and reinforces the meaning. A flea-bitten horse is twitchy and disturbed — the literal source-image. From there generalised to 'agitation, disturbance' and the modern slang 'flirty' or 'pungent'.

Stroke Order

sāo