hénghèng

across

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components
木 meaning component

  Meaning component

  

tree

黃 sound component

  Sound component

huáng

  

yellow

Evolution

橫 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
橫 Clerical script Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)

Clerical script

Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)
橫 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
橫 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
橫 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

() 

héng

across, horizontal, lateral; horizontal; across; crosswise; horizontal stroke (in Chinese characters); to place (sth) flat (on a surface); to cross (a river, etc); in a jumble; chaotic; (in fixed expressions) harsh and unreasonable; violent

() 

hèng

harsh and unreasonable; unexpected

Most common words with 橫
Freq.
Word
Meaning

across

才华横溢

brilliant

横扫

to sweep away

横向

horizontal

横行

to riot

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*C.gʷˤraŋ

hwaeng

héng

crosswise; horizontal


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 12.5420% of movies

1900th most common character in movies

1330th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

16

Simplified

Unicode

U+6A6B

Shuowen

“横,闌木也。从木,黄聲。”


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