Kilo Lingo

(diào) - to fall, to drop; (result complement) away, off in Mandarin

diào

Traditional: 掉

Line drawing of 掉
Coloured illustration of 掉
HSK 5
#544 of 5,000 Core 1000

Translation

to fall, to drop; (result complement) away, off

Word origin

掉 is a phono-semantic compound: 扌 (the hand radical) gives the meaning and 卓 (zhuó) supplies the sound. It means 'to fall, to drop', and serves as a result complement meaning 'away, off'.

Origin
phono-semantic compound
Root
扌 (shǒu, hand radical) + 卓 (zhuó, phonetic)

Stroke order

Stroke order for 掉

Examples

The cup fell off the table.

Your key has dropped.

Please forget about this matter.

My keys fell on the floor.

My wallet fell on the bus.

掉 (diào) means to fall or drop as a standalone verb. As a result complement attached to other verbs it indicates removal, elimination, or completion: 忘掉 (to forget completely), 扔掉 (to throw away), 去掉 (to remove), 卖掉 (to sell off). This complement use is very common in everyday Mandarin and gives 掉 a sense of getting rid of or finishing off something definitively.

Appears in 1 word

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 掉.

Used in

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This word is part of lesson 11.