jiǎo

crafty

cunning; sly

dog (犭) + sound jiǎo (交) = crafty and sly

The dog radical grounds the meaning in animal cunning — foxes and wild dogs were the archetypal tricksters. 交 gives the sound jiǎo and plays no semantic role here.

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To crossPhonetic
DogSemantic

这只狐狸看起来很猾。

zhè zhī húli kàn qǐlai hěn jiǎohuá。

This fox looks very cunning.

他用猾的方法骗过了所有人。

tā yòng jiǎohuá de fāngfǎ piànguò le suǒyǒu rén。

He used crafty methods to deceive everyone.

Words with 狡

奸狡

jiān jiǎo

devious

狡兔三窟

jiǎo tù sān kū

lit. a crafty rabbit has three burrows

狡兔死走狗烹

jiǎo tù sǐ zǒu gǒu pēng

see 兔死狗烹[tu4 si3 gou3 peng1]

狡滑

jiǎo huá

variant of 狡猾[jiao3 hua2]

狡猾

jiǎo huá

crafty; cunning; sly

狡狯

jiǎo kuài

(literary) crafty

狡诈

jiǎo zhà

crafty

狡赖

jiǎo lài

to deny (through sophism)

狡辩

jiǎo biàn

to deflect blame from oneself with a dishonest story

狡黠

jiǎo xiá

crafty

More characters with 犭