巧 (qiǎo): skillful; clever

Meanings

1 skillful; clever
2 coincidental; by chance

Characters

巧

qiǎo

skillful; clever; coincidental

Examples

真巧，我们又见面了！

Zhēn qiǎo, wǒmen yòu jiànmiàn le!

What a coincidence, we meet again!

她的手很巧。

Tā de shǒu hěn qiǎo.

She is very skillful with her hands.

这也太巧了吧！

Zhè yě tài qiǎo le ba!

This is way too much of a coincidence!

Tips

usage

巧 as "coincidental" is extremely common. 真巧 is a go-to phrase when you bump into someone unexpectedly.

culture

心灵手巧 means "clever mind, skillful hands" — a traditional compliment for craftspeople.

Components

radical

工 gōng

work; craft

Left work radical — the indexing component. 工 originally pictured a carpenter's square, the symbol of skilled craft. Anchors 巧 in the 'skilled hands at work' family: the original meaning was 'crafted with finesse', from which 'clever, ingenious, coincidental' all extended.

phonetic

丂 kǎo

puff of breath (archaic, here phonetic)

Right 丂 supplies the sound qiǎo (drifted from Old Chinese kʰ-). Same archaic phonetic appears in 考 (test, originally 'old') and 朽 (decayed). Pure sound-marker — meaning is anchored entirely by 工.