Kilo Lingo

(tōu) - steal, secretly, on the sly in Mandarin

tōu

Traditional: 偷

Line drawing of 偷
Coloured illustration of 偷
HSK 4
#801 of 5,000 Core 1000

Translation

steal, secretly, on the sly

Word origin

偷 (tōu) means 'to steal, secretly'. It is a phono-semantic compound with the 亻(person) radical for meaning and 俞 (yú) as the phonetic component.

Origin
phono-semantic compound
Root
亻(person radical) + 俞 (yú, phonetic)

Stroke order

Stroke order for 偷

Examples

Someone stole my wallet.

He left secretly.

Don't steal things.

Someone has stolen my bicycle.

The cat stole the fish off the table.

偷 (tōu) means steal, secretly, on the sly. It is used as a verb in everyday Mandarin speech.

Used in

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This word is part of lesson 17.