炒

Mandarin · pinyin chǎo

Meanings

  1. to sauté; to stir-fry
  2. to speculate (in real estate etc); to scalp
  3. to hype up
  4. to sack; to fire (sb)
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Characters in this entry

炒
chǎo · fry, saute, roast, boil, cook
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

3 · chao3

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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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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

caau2

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

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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

character

  1. to stir fry; to sauté
  2. (slang) to sack; to fire (short for 炒魷魚 /炒鱿鱼 (chǎo yóuyú))
  3. (originally Cantonese) to speculate in
  4. (Hong Kong Cantonese, of machines) to crash
  5. (Hong Kong Cantonese) to perform badly (in a test or exam)
  6. (Hong Kong Cantonese, transitive, in matches or competitions) to win (someone)

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

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