贼
zéi HSK7

thief

贼 (賊) zéi
thief noun
a person who steals; robber

那个贼被警察抓住了。

nà​gè zéi bèi jǐng​chá zhuā​zhù le.

The thief was caught by the police.

traitor noun
a person who betrays a country or cause; subversive

认贼作父是极其无耻的行为。

rèn zéi zuò fù shì jí​qí wú​chǐ de xíng​wéi.

Treating a villain as one's father is an utterly shameless act.

extremely adverb
very, insanely, or damn; used as a colloquial intensifier common in Northeast China and Taiwan

今天的天气贼冷。

jīn​tiān de tiān​qì zéi lěng.

It is freezing today.

harm noun
to harm, injure, or murder

古书中记载，那个奸臣曾多次在背地里贼害忠良。

gǔ​shū zhōng jì​zǎi, nà​gè jiān​chén céng duō cì zài bèi​dì​li zéi​hài zhōng​liáng.

Historical records state that the treacherous official had secretly persecuted loyal and upright subjects on many occasions.

sly idiom
wicked, evil, shifty, or devious in character

这个人贼眉鼠眼的，一看就不怀好意。

zhè gè rén zéi​méi​shǔ​yǎn de, yī kàn jiù bù​huái​hǎo​yì.

This guy looks shifty and up to no good.

Cross-References

Has old variant

Frequency
Character
Written text
2,001st most common 36.4 per million
Movie subtitles
1,903rd most common 22.7 per million appears in 9% of films
Word
Movie subtitles
20.2 per million appears in 6% of films
Written text
25.9 per million

Details
HSK 2.0
Level 6
HSK 3.0
Level 7
Traditional
賊
Strokes
10
Unicode
U+8D3C

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