Dictionary › 巧妙

巧妙

qiǎo miào

Old HSK 5 HSK 3.0 level 6 2-character word

巧妙 (qiǎo miào) means "ingenious, clever (of ideas/methods)". It is an HSK 3.0 level 6 word, and was HSK 5 in the old six-level list.

What 巧妙 means

1. ingenious; clever
2. ingenuity; artifice

The characters in 巧妙

• 巧qiǎoopportunely; coincidentally; as it happens
• 妙miàoclever; wonderful

Example sentences

• 好巧妙啊。
  That's clever.
• 戏法人人会变，各有巧妙不同。
  Everyone's tricks are different; each differs in ingenious ways.
• 惠子巧妙地把碗碟迭起再拿到水槽。
  Huì zǐ qiǎomiàodi bǎ wǎn dié diéqǐ zài ná dào shuǐcáo.
  Keiko deftly piles up the dishes and takes them to the sink.
• 他的幽默巧妙地缓解了晚餐时尴尬的气氛，让我松了一口气。
  Tā de yōumò qiǎomiào de huǎnjiě le wǎncān shí gāngà de qìfēn, ràng wǒ sōng le yīkǒuqì.
  His humor charmingly eased the embarrassing atmosphere at dinner time and made me breathe a sigh of relief.
• 她的脑筋转得很快，无论你对她说些什么，她总能巧妙地作出反驳。
  Tā de nǎojīn zhuǎn dehěn kuài, wúlùn nǐ duì tā shuō xiē shénme, tā zǒngnéng qiǎomiào de zuòchū fǎnbó.
  She's quick on her feet, so no matter what you say to her, she'll have a witty comeback.
• 人获得自由，究竟意味着什么？难道就是从一个牢笼里巧妙地逃出来，其实只是置身于另一个更大的牢笼。
  Rén huòdé zìyóu, jiūjìng yìwèizhe shénme? Nándào jiù shì cóng yī gè láolóng lǐ qiǎomiào de táo chūlái, qíshí zhǐ shì zhìshēn yú lìng yī gè gèng dà de láolóng.
  What does obtaining freedom really mean? It may seem like cleverly escaping out of a cage, but one just ends up in another bigger cage.

Where 巧妙 is taught

In the GraphChinese course it is part of Cleverness, Skill & Chess (HSK 5), each one a topic in the dependency graph of HSK 1–6 that opens only once its prerequisites are solid.

Go deeper

• Every HSK 5 word, with the rest of its level.
• The four tones and the neutral tone, to read qiǎo miào correctly.
• Look up another word in the free dictionary.