刨

• Pinyin: páo
• Hanzi breakdown: 刨 = 刂 (knife radical) + 包 (wrap, enclose) — knife cutting away layered material

Meaning

Dig; to scratch or scrape the earth; to hollow out by digging or planing; to deduct or subtract.

Used literally for digging in soil or planing wood, and colloquially for subtracting an amount. The sense of removing material underlies all uses. Also appears in 刨根问底 (dig to the root — get to the bottom of something).

Examples

1. 工人们用机器刨开坚硬的冻土，铺设管道。 The workers used machines to dig through the hard frozen ground to lay pipes.
2. 松鼠在树根旁刨土，寻找埋藏的坚果。 A squirrel scraped at the soil by the base of the tree, looking for nuts it had buried.
3. 刨去各项费用，实际利润相当有限。 After deducting all the expenses, the actual profit was quite limited.

Usage Guide

Context: construction, agriculture, finance, colloquial

Tone: neutral

Do Say

• 木工师傅用刨子将木板表面刨得光滑平整。(The carpenter used a plane to smooth the surface of the wooden board until it was flat and even.)
• 刨去原材料和人工成本，这批订单的利润率不足百分之八。(After deducting raw material and labour costs, the profit margin on this batch of orders is less than eight per cent.)

Don't Say

• 他刨了一篇文章 — use 写 or 撰写 for writing an article; 刨 involves physical digging or deducting, not composing text

Origin & History

刨 = 刂 (knife) + 包 (wrap around) — knife scraping around and removing material

Cultural Context

Generation: All ages

Social background: Universal