淘

Mandarin · pinyin táo

Meanings

  1. to wash (rice, sand etc in water to remove impurities)
  2. to dredge; to scoop out (sediment or waste)
  3. (dialect) to hunt for and buy (bargains or second-hand goods)
  4. (dialect) naughty; mischievous
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Characters in this entry

淘
táo · wash in a sieve; weed out
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

2 · tao2

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1character link28same-tone records
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Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

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Compare dictionary sources Rime · Wiktionary

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

tou4

Cantonese word readings for 淘. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

character

  1. to wash in a container in order to remove impurities; to pan
  2. (dialectal) to search for goods in an old market
  3. to dredge; to clean out
  4. to expend; to consume; to use up; to spend
  5. (dialectal) naughty; mischievous
  6. (neologism) to buy on Taobao
  7. a surname

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

淘 · tao2
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 65,986
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record淘 淘 [tao2] /to wash (rice, sand etc in water to remove impurities)/to dredge; to scoop out (sediment or waste)/(dialect) to hunt for and buy (bargains or second-hand goods)/(dialect) naughty; mischievous/