操
cāo HSK4

grasp, control

操 cāo
drill noun
to perform physical exercises or military drills

清晨的校园里，学生们正在操场上做操。

qīng​chén de xiào​yuán lǐ, xué​sheng men zhèng​zài cāo chǎng shàng zuò​cāo.

In the early morning, students are doing exercises on the school playground.

operate verb
to operate, manage, control, or steer a device, business, or task

她独自一人操持着全家的生计。

tā dú​zì yī rén cāo chí zhe quán​jiā de shēng​jì.

She manages the whole family's livelihood all by herself.

speak verb
to speak a language or dialect, or to play a musical instrument

他操着一口厚重的家乡口音。

tā cāo zhe yī kǒu hòu​zhòng de jiā​xiāng kǒu​yin.

He speaks with a heavy local accent.

grasp verb
to grasp or hold something in one's hands

他手里操着一把短刀。

tā shǒu lǐ cāo zhe yī bǎ duǎn​dāo.

He was wielding a short knife.

Cross-References

Variant of

Frequency
Character
Written text
1,173rd most common 119.9 per million
Movie subtitles
893rd most common 128.7 per million appears in 34% of films
Word
Movie subtitles
112.5 per million appears in 16% of films
Written text
47.4 per million

Details
HSK 2.0
Level 5
HSK 3.0
Level 4
Strokes
16
Unicode
U+64CD

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