Example sentences
tā他xiào笑le了。
He laughed.
tā她xiào笑qǐ起lái来hěn很hǎo好kàn看。
She looks nice when she smiles.
The story behind the character
笑
笑 is 竹 (bamboo) over 夭, a person with a tilted head. Why bamboo? Honest answer: nobody knows, and the old text of the Shuowen is a mess on this one. A Tang scholar named Li Yangbing proposed bamboo bending in the wind, 竹得风，其体夭屈，如人之笑, the way a laughing person doubles over. Xu Shen's later editor read that and wrote 未知其审, we can't be sure. Neither can we.