猫

猫 (māo) is the Chinese word for cat — the household pet. The character pairs the 犭 (dog/animal) radical with 苗 (miáo) as the phonetic, and the word is also onomatopoeic, echoing a cat's 'meow.' Two practical notes: first, the correct measure word is 只 (zhī), not the generic 个 — 一只猫 'one cat,' not 一个猫. Even at HSK 1, using 只 with animals marks you as careful; second, in Chinese internet culture, cats are wildly popular and have spawned terms like 撸猫 (lū māo, 'pet a cat'), 云吸猫 (yún xī māo, 'cloud-petting cats' — watching cat videos when you can't own one), and 猫奴 (māo nú, 'cat slave,' a self-deprecating term cat owners use). 熊猫 (xióngmāo, 'panda') literally means 'bear-cat.'

Memory hook: māo sounds like 'meow' — Mandarin's word for cat is basically the sound the cat makes.