偷偷
tōutōu · HSK 5
secretly
🤫 偷 (steal) doubled = stealthily, on the sly
偷 means to steal or do furtively; reduplicating it (偷偷) turns the verb into an adverb meaning secretly or on the QT. Chinese often doubles a single character to soften or adverbialize it.
偷 — person radical 亻 + 俞 (yú, phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound: the person radical 亻 signals a human action, while 俞 supplies the sound. Originally 偷 meant 'careless' or 'perfunctory,' and over time it shifted to its modern sense of 'to steal' or 'stealthily.'
偷 — person radical 亻 + 俞 (yú, phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound: the person radical 亻 signals a human action, while 俞 supplies the sound. Originally 偷 meant 'careless' or 'perfunctory,' and over time it shifted to its modern sense of 'to steal' or 'stealthily.'