IDENTITY
药yàomedicine; drug
HSK 1Top 720
CORE MEANING
medicine; drug
- Part of speech
- noun
- Register
- neutral
Senses
- 1.medicineHSK1
FORM & BREAKDOWN
- Radical
- 艹grass radical (cǎo)
- strokes
- 9
- Structure
- top-bottom compound
- IDS sequence
- ⿱艹约
- herbs
- gives the sound yào (historical)
USAGE
Common words
吃药chī yàoto take medicine
药店yàodiànpharmacy
Graded examples
妈妈给我买了药。Māma gěi wǒ mǎi le yào.HSK2
Mom bought me medicine.
RELATIONS
Lookalike — don’t mix up
- 约
LEARNING
Memory aid
Herbs (艹) weighed in portions (约) — medicine.
- HSK version
- 3.0
- Frequency rank
- #720
- Memory aid
- memory-aid
TRUST & SOURCES
- Reviewed by
- AI-assisted editorial review
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-15
Sources
- CC-CEDICT 2026-01-01
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