鮑 meaning and stroke order
Abalone; dried fish; surname
How to write 鮑, stroke by stroke
16 strokes in order. Each box adds the next stroke in red. Write top to bottom and left to right, and finish enclosing strokes last.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
Meaning of 鮑
Definitions from CC-CEDICT, grouped by pronunciation.
- abalone
How 鮑 is built
Phono-semantic (sound + meaning) character. Fish.
魚 gives the meaning and 包 hints at the sound.
Radical: 魚 (fish), shared by 63 characters on this site.
How to remember 鮑
A fish 魚 (yú) on the left and 包 (bāo, to wrap) on the right: picture a sea creature wrapped in its own shell. 包 also gives the sound, bāo becoming bào.
鮑 is the traditional form, seen in Taiwan, Hong Kong and older texts. Mainland China writes it 鲍. It almost always appears in 鮑魚 (bàoyú, abalone), a prized seafood at banquets, and it is also a common surname, as in 鮑叔牙 (Bào Shūyá), a famous figure from ancient China. Example: 這家餐廳的鮑魚很貴。(Zhè jiā cāntīng de bàoyú hěn guì.) The abalone at this restaurant is very expensive.
Common mistake: Learners often read it with the first tone of its phonetic part 包 (bāo), but 鮑 is fourth tone, bào. Do not mix it up with 飽 (bǎo, full after eating), which has the food radical 飠 instead of 魚.
Common words with 鮑
Ordered by HSK level, then by how often they appear in everyday Chinese.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 鮑魚 | bàoyú | abalone |
Questions about 鮑
How many strokes are in 鮑?
鮑 is written with 16 strokes. The diagrams on this page number every stroke in the order it is written, with the new stroke shown in red.
What does 鮑 mean?
鮑 (bào) means abalone; dried fish; surname. A common word with it is 鲍鱼 (bàoyú), meaning "abalone".
How do you pronounce 鮑?
鮑 is pronounced bào, in the fourth tone (falling).
What is the radical of 鮑?
The radical of 鮑 is 魚, which carries the idea of "fish". Dictionaries list 鮑 under this radical.
What is the simplified form of 鮑?
鮑 is a traditional character. Its simplified form is 鲍, used in mainland China and Singapore.
Is abalone actually a fish?
No, abalone is a sea snail with a shell. Chinese still names it with 魚 and calls it 鮑魚 (bàoyú), because many sea creatures were grouped under the fish radical.
What does 鮑魚 mean in classical Chinese?
In old texts 鮑魚 could mean salted or dried fish with a strong smell, which is where the sense 'dried fish' comes from. The saying 如入鮑魚之肆 (rú rù bàoyú zhī sì) compares bad company to a stinking fish shop.