套路tào lù

A trick, a setup

dōu shì tào lù!都是套路！It’s all a setup!

套路 first meant a fixed routine in martial arts. Online it means a planned trick: a sales pitch, a dating move or a plot twist you can see coming.

Took off: 2016
Started in: Martial arts vocabulary
Today: Now everyday Chinese

What it means

A 套路 is a set of moves that someone has planned, or used before, to get something from you. 被套路了 means “I got played”. 套路深 means “full of tricks”.

It can also mean a plain routine: the same move a person always makes, or a TV show’s formula.

How people use it

It is everyday Chinese now. You hear it about ads, apps, dating and TV plots.

琦琦

这个健身卡第一个月只要九块九！
zhè gè jiàn shēn kǎ dì yī gè yuè zhǐ yào jiǔ kuài jiǔ!
This gym card is only 9.9 kuai for the first month!
第二个月呢？
dì èr gè yuè ne?
And the second month?
要先交一年，三千块
yào xiān jiāo yì nián, sān qiān kuài
You have to pay for a year up front. 3,000 kuai.
套路！别上当
tào lù! bié shàng dàng
It’s a trick! Don’t fall for it.

More examples

说好的免费，最后还要付钱，都是套路。
shuō hǎo de miǎn fèi, zuì hòu hái yào fù qián, dōu shì tào lù.
It was meant to be free, and then I had to pay. It’s all a trick.
我又被他套路了！
wǒ yòu bèi tā tào lù le!
He played me again!
这部剧的套路我早就猜到了。
zhè bù jù de tào lù wǒ zǎo jiù cāi dào le.
I saw this show’s formula coming a long time ago.

Where it came from

In martial arts, a 套路 is a fixed sequence of moves. In 2016 the word spread online with a wider meaning: any planned way of talking or acting that is meant to mislead, up to a trap.

咬文嚼字 put it on its list of the words of 2016. In 2018, after a store’s promised full refund turned into store vouchers, a China Daily language page quoted users who said 城市套路深, “the city is full of tricks”.