The mouth; opening radical — 口 (kǒu)
An open mouth. It marks anything spoken, eaten or shaped like an opening: 叫 (to call), 吃 (to eat), 喝 (to drink), 问 (to ask). It is the most common radical of all in everyday text, and a square 口 inside a character almost always means speech or eating.
At a glance
- Radical
- 口
- Pinyin
- kǒu
- Meaning
- Mouth; opening
- Strokes
- 3 (3 strokes section)
Stroke order
Characters built on 口
Every character below contains 口. Meanings come from the same dictionary that powers the translator, so you can look any of them up in full there.
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口 — frequently asked questions
What does the Chinese radical 口 mean?
口 is pronounced kǒu and means "mouth; opening". It is written in 3 strokes. An open mouth. It marks anything spoken, eaten or shaped like an opening: 叫 (to call), 吃 (to eat), 喝 (to drink), 问 (to ask). It is the most common radical of all in everyday text, and a square 口 inside a character almost always means speech or eating.
Which characters use the 口 radical?
Common examples include 叫 (jiào, Shout (calls - bid - by)), 吃 (chī, Eat), 喝 (hē / hè, To drink; Shout), 听 (tīng / tìng, Listen (obey - supervise - tin can); Let (allow)). This page lists 10 of them with pinyin, meanings and audio.
How many strokes does 口 have?
3. Radical dictionaries file it in the 3 strokes section, which is how you look up an unfamiliar character when you cannot guess its pronunciation.
Other 3-stroke radicals
Keep going
Watch any of these characters being written in the Stroke Order Animator, practise them on printable 田字格 sheets, hunt radicals against the clock in Radical Hunt, or read the background in The 100 Most Common Chinese Radicals and Chinese Character Etymology.