塗
tú HSK7

smear, spread, paint

涂 (塗) tú
apply verb
to apply paint, ointment, or other substances; to smear or daub

他在伤口上涂了点药膏。

tā zài shāng​kǒu shàng tú le diǎn yào​gāo.

He applied some ointment to the wound.

mud noun
mud or mire (literary usage)

这里曾是一片低洼的泥涂，现在已经改造成了公园。

zhè​lǐ céng shì yī piàn dī​wā de ní​tú, xiàn​zài yǐ​jīng gǎi​zào chéng le gōng​yuán.

This used to be a low-lying mudflat, but it has now been transformed into a park.

scribble verb
to scribble, scrawl, or blot out writing

他在纸上涂掉了写错的字。

tā zài zhǐ shàng tú​diào le xiě cuò de zì.

He crossed out the wrong word on the paper.

street noun
road or street (literary usage)

他在漫长的征涂中历经磨难，终于到达了目的地。

tā zài màn​cháng de zhēng​tú zhōng lì​jīng mó​nàn, zhōng​yú dào​dá le mù​dì​dì.

He went through many hardships on the long journey and finally reached his destination.

Frequency
Character
Written text
1,735th most common 51.4 per million
Movie subtitles
1,506th most common 42.4 per million appears in 22% of films
Word
Movie subtitles
22.6 per million appears in 9% of films
Written text
25.6 per million

Details
HSK 3.0
Level 7
Simplified
涂
Strokes
13
Unicode
U+5857

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