háo
verb #15,845

Meanings

  1. 1 to howl
  2. 2 to bawl
  3. 3 to wail loudly

Examples

Láng zài yuèguāng xià háojiào.
The wolf howled in the moonlight.
Háizi shuāidǎo hòu háotáodàkū.
The child fell and burst into loud wailing.

Tips

usage
implies loud, unrestrained crying or howling. Common compounds: 嚎叫 (háojiào, to howl), 嚎啕 (háotáo, to wail). It can describe both animals howling and humans bawling.

Components

radical
kǒu
mouth
is the indexing mouth radical, marking as a vocal-emission verb — here, the long howl of grief or a wolf's drawn-out cry (嚎啕大哭, ). Sibling mouth-radical chars (weep), (shout), (yelp), (yell) all share the mouth-on-the-left + sound-mimicking-phonetic pattern.
phonetic
háo
grand; bold; fine hair
(háo) supplies the sound exactly — same initial, same rime, same tone. Same phonetic also drives (moat) and (river-name). The grand-and-stirring flavour of colours with a sense of scale: this is not a small whimper but a great booming cry that rolls outward.

Stroke Order

háo