卻
què HSK4

but

却 (卻) què
but adverb
used as an adverb to indicate contrast, opposition, or an unexpected turn; yet, however, or nevertheless

他虽然很累，却睡不着。

tā suī​rán hěn lèi, què shuì bù zháo.

Although he was very tired, he couldn't fall asleep.

to decline verb
to refuse or turn down an invitation, gift, or request

这种盛情实在难以推却。

zhè zhǒng shèng​qíng shí​zài nán​yǐ tuī què.

It is hard to decline such generous hospitality.

to retreat verb
to move backwards or withdraw from a position

困难面前，我们绝不能退却。

kùn​nan miàn​qián, wǒ​men jué bù néng tuì què.

We must never retreat in the face of difficulties.

Frequency
Character
Written text
287th most common 768.4 per million
Movie subtitles
495th most common 292.6 per million appears in 74% of films
Word
Movie subtitles
397.8 per million appears in 73% of films
Written text
724.3 per million

Details
HSK 2.0
Level 4
HSK 3.0
Level 4
Simplified
却
Strokes
9
Unicode
U+537B

Sources
Definitions
CC-CEDICT
Frequency data
MTSU Chinese text computingSUBTLEX-CHBCC Corpus (BLCU)