抠
kōu HSK7

raise

抠 (摳) kōu
dig verb
to dig out, pick at, or scratch with a finger or a pointed object

他用手指抠了抠耳朵。

tā yòng shǒu​zhǐ kōu le kōu ěr​duo.

He scratched his ear with his finger.

carve verb
to carve, cut out, or hollow out

他在木板上抠了一个圆洞。

tā zài mù​bǎn shàng kōu le yī gè yuán dòng.

He carved a round hole in the wooden board.

lift up verb
to lift up or pull up, particularly the hem of a robe or skirt

她抠起衣襟，兜着刚摘下的苹果。

tā kōu qǐ yī​jīn, dōu zhe gāng zhāi​xià de píng​guǒ.

She held up the hem of her clothes to carry the freshly picked apples.

scrutinize verb
to study meticulously or dwell over-critically on small details

学习不能只死抠字眼，要理解大意。

xué​xí bù néng zhǐ sǐ kōu zì​yǎn, yào lǐ​jiě dà​yì.

Learning shouldn't just be about nitpicking words; you need to understand the general meaning.

stingy verb
miserly or extremely cheap

那个老板性格很抠，连员工加班时的打车费都不肯报销。

nà gè lǎo​bǎn xìng​gé hěn kōu, lián yuán​gōng jiā​bān shí de dǎ​chē​fèi dōu bù kěn bào​xiāo.

That boss is very stingy; he won't even reimburse the taxi fares for employees who work overtime.

Frequency
Character
Written text
4,103rd most common 2.69 per million
Movie subtitles
3,422nd most common 1.64 per million appears in 1% of films
Word
Movie subtitles
1.73 per million appears in 1% of films
Written text
4.32 per million

Details
HSK 3.0
Level 7
Traditional
摳
Strokes
7
Unicode
U+62A0

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