Dictionary › 马虎

马虎

mǎ hu

Old HSK 4 HSK 3.0 level 6 2-character word Traditional 馬虎

马虎 (mǎ hu) means "careless / sloppy". It is an HSK 3.0 level 6 word, and was HSK 4 in the old six-level list.

What 马虎 means

1. careless
2. sloppy
3. negligent
4. skimpy

The characters in 马虎

• 马mǎhorse; horse or cavalry piece in Chinese chess; knight in Western chess
• 虎hǔtiger

Example sentences

• 我从马来西亚来的妈妈觉得那三匹马马马虎虎。
  Wǒ cóng Mǎláixīyà lái de māma juéde nà sān pǐ mǎ mǎmahūhū.
  My mother from Malaysia thinks that those three horses are so-so.

Words containing 马虎

• 打马虎眼dǎ mǎ hu yǎnto play dumb; to slack off (idiom)
• 迷离马虎mí lí mǎ humuddle-headed

Sounds the same

Read mǎ hu, tone for tone, but written differently.

• 马糊variant of 马虎

Where 马虎 is taught

In the GraphChinese course it is part of Personality & character traits (HSK 4), each one a topic in the dependency graph of HSK 1–6 that opens only once its prerequisites are solid.

Go deeper

• Every HSK 4 word, with the rest of its level.
• The four tones and the neutral tone, to read mǎ hu correctly.
• Look up another word in the free dictionary.