Chinese word dictionary

蜷缩

quán suō · to curl up; to huddle; to cower

Practice word

Word information

Simplified蜷缩

Traditional蜷縮

Pinyinquán suō

Part of speechDictionary

HSK 3.0Not listed

HSK 2.0Not listed

Character breakdown

Study each Hanzi separately, then return to the complete word so pronunciation, meaning, and movement stay connected.

蜷quán

to curl one's body; to wriggle like a worm

缩suō

to withdraw, to shrink, to pull back; abbreviation

How to learn 蜷缩

Listen once without reading, repeat the pinyin with its tones, then write every character in sequence. Finally, recall the complete meaning instead of memorizing each character as an isolated translation.

When the word appears in a sentence, check whether its part of speech and meaning match the definition shown here. Chinese words can change nuance with context.

Related vocabulary

Words with the same characters

Compare how a familiar Hanzi changes meaning inside another word.

缩短suōduǎn

to shorten; to reduce; to curtail

缩小suōxiǎo

to reduce; to decrease; to shrink

压缩yāsuō

to compress; compression

节衣缩食jiéyī-suōshí

to save on food and clothing (idiom); to live frugally

紧缩jǐnsuō

(economics) to reduce; to curtail; to cut back; to tighten; austerity; tightening; crunch

浓缩nóngsuō

to concentrate; to condense; (nuclear energy) to enrich; espresso coffee (abbr. for 意式濃縮咖啡|意式浓缩咖啡[Yi4 shi4 nong2 suo1 ka1 fei1])