‘抄送’ (chāo sòng) is a noun borrowed from email terminology, meaning ‘CC’ (carbon copy) — the act of sending a copy of an email to additional recipients beyond the primary addressee. The character 抄 (chāo) originally means ‘to copy’ or ‘to transcribe’, while 送 (sòng) means ‘to send’. Together, they literally convey ‘copy-and-send’, reflecting the function of CC in digital communication. It is used almost exclusively in formal or workplace email contexts in modern Chinese.

Unlike its English counterpart, ‘抄送’ is rarely used outside email or messaging systems — you won’t hear it in spoken conversation about physical letters or documents. In Chinese email interfaces, the CC field is consistently labeled ‘抄送’. It carries a neutral, professional register and implies transparency: all recipients can see who else received the message. While historically linked to carbon paper duplication, today it’s purely digital and functions as a fixed compound term with no productive verb use (e.g., you don’t say ‘我抄送了他’ as a verb phrase; instead, you’d say ‘我把他加进了抄送栏’).