驳 (bó) is a Chinese character meaning “to refute”. It is written from 马 (horse) and 爻 (the crossed lines of a divination trigram), side by side, and takes 7 strokes.
Build the character for “to refute”
Four steps: break it apart, build it, recall it, use it in a word.
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Structure
马 + 爻
Left–right structure
Structure from: 说文解字（駁，馬色不純也。从馬爻聲）
Memory aid
A horse (马) on the left, and on the right 爻 — two crossed marks stacked up, like patches thrown across its coat. A horse that refuses to be one plain colour: 驳, the character for contradicting, for arguing back.
This is a memory aid, not the historical origin.
Stroke order
7 strokes
In real words
- 反驳fǎn bóto refute; to argue back against what someone said驳 = bó
- 驳回bó huíto reject; to overrule (a request or an appeal)驳 = bó
Go deeper
All readings
to refute
to refute; to contradict; to reject an argument; (of a horse or colour) mottled, mixed
说出理由否定别人的意见；也指颜色混杂不纯。 — studyhanzi 编写
Words with this reading
- 反驳fǎn bóto refute; to argue back against what someone said驳 = bó
- 驳回bó huíto reject; to overrule (a request or an appeal)驳 = bó
Stroke data: hanzi-writer-data (Arphic Public License) · licenses & attributions
Questions people ask about this character
What does 驳 mean?
驳 (bó) means to refute; to contradict; to reject an argument; (of a horse or colour) mottled, mixed.
How do you pronounce 驳?
It is pronounced bó.
What parts is 驳 made of?
马 (horse) and 爻 (the crossed lines of a divination trigram), side by side. The recorded source is: 说文解字（駁，馬色不純也。从馬爻聲）. Components are the building blocks of the shape; the radical used for dictionary lookup is a separate thing.
How many strokes does 驳 have?
7. You can watch the stroke order on this page, or trace it yourself.
What is the radical of 驳?
马. The radical is how the character is filed in a dictionary — it is not the whole story of how the character is built.
What words use 驳?
Common ones are 反驳 and 驳回. The reading of 驳 is not the same in every word, so each word on this page shows which reading applies.