苦涩

苦涩 kǔsè

Bitter and astringent; pained; agonized^†

苦涩 in a sentence HSK 6 繁體苦澀 kuse

What 苦涩 means

Bitter and astringent^†
pained^†
agonized^†

† Our own dictionary has no entry for 苦涩, so these meanings are adapted from CC-CEDICT, published by MDBG and its contributors and based on CEDICT © 1997, 1998 Paul Andrew Denisowski, and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Recognise a piece of 苦涩 but not the character it belongs to? Pick the parts in the component character finder and it will name the character for you — free for every character, with nothing to sign in to.

Character by character

苦涩 is written with 2 characters. Chinese words are usually easier to remember once you can see what each part contributes.

苦

kǔ

Bitter (hard - painstakingly - suffering)

涩

sè

Astringent (obscure - grating - [of surfaces])

Words that share a character with 苦涩

How to write 苦涩

Stroke order is not decoration — it is what makes handwriting legible and what dictionary lookup by stroke count depends on.

Practise 苦涩 on printable 田字格 sheets, trace it in the writing practice tool, or watch any other character in the Stroke Order Animator.

苦涩 in a sentence

这种茶喝起来有点苦涩。

Zhè zhǒng chá hē qǐlái yǒudiǎn kǔsè.

This tea tastes a little bitter and astringent.

他脸上带着苦涩的笑。

Tā liǎn shang dàizhe kǔsè de xiào.

There was a bitter smile on his face.

Every sentence on this site that uses 苦涩 is collected on the 苦涩 sentence page. Want pinyin above a sentence of your own? Paste it into the Pinyin Annotator.

Questions about 苦涩

What does 苦涩 mean in English?

苦涩 is pronounced kǔsè and means Bitter and astringent, pained, agonized †.

How do you pronounce 苦涩?

苦涩 is kǔsè in pinyin — written kuse without tone marks. Press the audio button on this page to hear it spoken by a native voice.

What are the characters in 苦涩?

苦涩 is written with 2 characters: 苦 (kǔ) Bitter (hard - painstakingly - suffering), 涩 (sè) Astringent (obscure - grating - [of surfaces]). Knowing the parts is usually how the whole word becomes memorable.

How is 苦涩 written in traditional Chinese?

苦澀. The simplified form 苦涩 is used in mainland China and Singapore; 苦澀 is used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. Both are pronounced kǔsè.

Is 苦涩 an HSK word?

Yes — 苦涩 is on the official HSK 6 vocabulary list. You can study it with the rest of that list on the HSK 6 page.

Studied around the same time

枯萎 kūwěi 枯燥 kūzào 哭泣 kūqì 苦尽甘来 kǔjìngānlái 挎 kuà 跨 kuà 快活 kuàihuo 宽敞 kuānchang

Keep going

Translate a whole sentence containing 苦涩 with the Chinese to Pinyin translator, study it alongside the rest of HSK 6, drill it with HSK flashcards, or save it above and review it on your review deck.

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