肴 meaning and stroke order
Cooked or prepared meat
How to write 肴, stroke by stroke
8 strokes in order. Each box adds the next stroke in red. Write top to bottom and left to right, and finish enclosing strokes last.
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Meaning of 肴
Definitions from CC-CEDICT, grouped by pronunciation.
- meat dishes
- mixed viands
- variant of 肴[yao2]
How 肴 is built
Phono-semantic (sound + meaning) character. Meat.
⺼ gives the meaning and 乂 hints at the sound.
Radical: ⺼ (meat), shared by 176 characters on this site.
How to remember 肴
The bottom of 肴 looks like 有 (yǒu, to have), which holds the meat part ⺼, and 乂 sits on top as a sound hint. Picture a crossed pair of chopsticks 乂 resting over a plate where you have meat: that is a cooked meat dish.
肴 is rarely used alone in modern Chinese. It mostly appears in the word 菜肴 (càiyáo, dishes) and in set phrases like 美味佳肴 (měiwèi jiāyáo, delicious food). Example: 桌上摆满了菜肴。(Zhuō shang bǎi mǎn le càiyáo.) The table was covered with dishes.
Common mistake: Learners often misread 肴 as 有 (yǒu) because the bottom is identical, so remember the extra 乂 on top changes both sound and meaning. Also keep the second tone yáo, not yǎo.
Common words with 肴
Ordered by HSK level, then by how often they appear in everyday Chinese.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 菜肴 | càiyáo | vegetable and meat dishes; dish |
肴 in example sentences
Real sentences from the Tatoeba project, with pinyin and English.
Characters that contain 肴
Learning 肴 makes these easier to recognize and write.
Questions about 肴
How many strokes are in 肴?
肴 is written with 8 strokes. The diagrams on this page number every stroke in the order it is written, with the new stroke shown in red.
What does 肴 mean?
肴 (yáo) means cooked or prepared meat. A common word with it is 菜肴 (càiyáo), meaning "vegetable and meat dishes; dish".
How do you pronounce 肴?
肴 is pronounced yáo, in the second tone (rising).
What is the radical of 肴?
The radical of 肴 is ⺼, which carries the idea of "meat". Dictionaries list 肴 under this radical.
What is the traditional form of 肴?
The traditional form of 肴 is 殽 and 餚. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau; 肴 is the simplified form used in mainland China and Singapore.
What is the difference between 菜 and 菜肴?
菜 (cài) is the everyday word for a dish or vegetables. 菜肴 sounds more formal or written and refers to prepared dishes as a whole, often in menus, articles or descriptions of a banquet.
Can I say 肴 by itself to mean meat?
Not in normal speech. For meat you say 肉 (ròu), and 肴 survives mainly inside words and literary phrases such as 菜肴 and 佳肴 (jiāyáo, fine dishes).