xiāo
adjective #24,567

Meanings

  1. 1 clamorous
  2. 2 noisy
  3. 3 arrogant
  4. 4 presumptuous

Examples

Shìjǐng xuānxiāo, lìngrén nányǐ rùmián.
The clamor of the market made it hard to fall asleep.
Qìyànxiāozhāng de guānyuán zuìzhōng shòudào le fǎlǜ de zhìcái.
The arrogant official was eventually punished by law.

Tips

register
is a classical/literary character rarely used alone in modern Chinese. It appears in set phrases: 喧嚣 (clamor/hubbub), 嚣张 (arrogant/rampant), (worldly clamor).

Components

radical
kǒu
mouth
Top-left — the first of four mouths in this char. Multiple mouths together evoke a babble of voices, the literal scene of clamour. This corner mouth pairs with the top-right to flank the head in the middle.
semantic
kǒu
mouth
Top-right mirrors the top-left mouth, completing the upper pair. Two mouths shouting on either side of the head below paint a chaotic, surrounded-by-noise picture — the core image of 's clamour and din.
semantic
head; page
in the middle is the original head pictograph. Surrounded above and below by four shouting mouths, it gives the literal target — a head besieged by noise from every side. This positioning is what stretches the meaning to arrogance and presumption.
semantic
kǒu
mouth
Bottom-left — third mouth, mirroring the top arrangement below the head. Together with its bottom-right twin, it completes the four-corner siege of voices around , the visual signature that gives its overwhelming-noise meaning.
semantic
kǒu
mouth
Bottom-right closes the four-mouth circle around the head. The full set of four chars is also the underlying structure of 's traditional form — which is even more elaborate, with four plus the head.

Stroke Order

xiāo