Skip to content

饺jiǎo

Character evolution

饺

Hover to feel · click to explore

Simplified · Today

Shuowen

The character 饺 (jiǎo), meaning dumpling, is composed of the food radical 饣 (a simplified form of 食, indicating something edible) on the left, paired with 交 on the right, which serves as both a phonetic element and a semantic one—the crossed or folded edges of a dumpling. Unlike many ancient characters, 饺 did not exist in oracle bone times but was coined later in Chinese history to name this folded food; the structure elegantly captures both what it is (something to eat) and how it is made (edges crossing together).

Pinyin

jiǎo· HSK 1