效

xiào

result, effect; effectiveness; to imitate

Meaning

  • Efficacy and Result: The result of an action regarding its utility or success; specifically whether a method worked.
  • Potency: Effective or capable of producing the desired outcome (common in medical or technical contexts).
  • Imitation: To model oneself after another, often as a pedagogical or moral alignment with a superior (e.g., sage, ancestor, teacher).
  • Testing and Proof: The demonstration of effectiveness through trial.

Grammar and usage

  • Transitive Verb: To imitate [someone]; to produce [an effect].
  • Noun: The object of measurement or search (e.g., "seeking the efficacy").
  • Attributive/Adjective: Describing a tool, medicine, or method as effective.

Distinctions

  • Contrast with 果 (guǒ): While 果 denotes finality or an inevitable conclusion, 效 focuses on the demonstrated value or potency of the action taken.

History and forms

  • Variants: U+52B9 is a known semantic variant.
  • Phonetics: Fanqie reading 胡敎; Tang-period reading hàu.

Decontextualized translator aid. This page describes plausible lexical range; it does not choose what the glyph means in a particular passage.