鞭 (biān): whip or lash, to flog, to whip

鞭 (biān) is a Chinese character meaning “whip or lash.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 革 (semantic) and 便 (phonetic). It ranks #2194 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 鞭 is a compound character. Its radical form 革 (leather) appears in many related characters such as 鞋 (xié, shoe), 革 (gé, animal hide), 靴 (xuē, boots).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. whip or lash
  2. to flog
  3. to whip

Etymology & Origin

鞭

pictophoneticThis character is a compound form.

Decomposition: ⿰革便 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18

Practice writing 鞭 with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
鞭子nounbiān ziwhip
鞭打verbbiān dǎto whip
鞭炮nounbiān pàofirecrackers
鞭策verbbiān cèto spur on
皮鞭pí biānlash
鞭笞verbbiān chīto flog
教鞭nounjiào biānteacher's pointer
扬鞭verbyáng biānto whip on
鞭长莫及phrasebiān cháng mò jílit. the whip cannot reach (idiom)
鞭毛nounbiān máoflagellum
鞭挞verbbiān tàto lash
快马加鞭phrasekuài mǎ jiā biānto spur the horse to full speed (idiom)
投鞭断流tóu biān duàn liúarms enough to stem the stream (idiom)
三节鞭sān jié biānthree-section staff (old-style weapon)
鞭辟入里phrasebiān pì rù lǐpenetrated
30
Total compounds
50
As first character
40
As last character
10
As middle character

鞭 appears in 30 compound words: 50 as the first character, 40 as the last, and 10 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Strongest Collocations

Characters that most frequently co-occur with 鞭 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

祭jì
0.55711 co-occurrences
炮pào
0.539920 co-occurrences
扫sǎo
0.51811 co-occurrences
刑xíng
0.4741,420 co-occurrences
毛máo
0.4511,106 co-occurrences
打dǎ
0.4272,314 co-occurrences
烛zhú
0.42419 co-occurrences
香xiāng
0.39611 co-occurrences
党dǎng
0.389976 co-occurrences
燃rán
0.388178 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (5)

鞭辟入里biānpìrùlǐHSK 7+

to be penetrating

phrase
鞭长莫及biānchángmòjíHSK 7+

beyond one's influence; too far to be able to help

phrase
掘墓鞭尸juémùbiānshīHSK 7+

to be extremely evil; to have an extremely deep grudge

phrase
快马加鞭kuàimǎjiābiānHSK 7+

to whip the horse to an even swifter speed; to go even faster; to accelerate the speed

phrase
投鞭断流tóu biān duàn liúHSK 7+

arms enough to stem the stream (idiom); formidable army

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

了解鞭字的来源,有助于理解中国文化。

le xiè biān zì de lái yuán , yǒu zhù yú lǐ xiè zhōng guó wén huā .

Understanding the origin of the character for "whip" helps to comprehend Chinese culture.

中時新聞網Mar 2026

婚宴敬酒起口角冲突 4男挺友放鞭炮寻仇遭警逮

hūn yàn jìng jiǔ qǐ kǒu jiǎo chōng tū 4 nán tǐng yǒu fàng biān pào xún qiú zāo jǐng dǎi

A dispute broke out during a wedding toast; four men set off firecrackers in retaliation and were arrested by police

中国新闻网_梳理天下新闻Feb 2026

放鞭炮放成爆震性耳聋 专家提醒:一次巨响就能...

fàng biān pào fàng chéng bào zhèn xìng ěr lóng zhuān jiā tí xǐng : yī cì jù xiǎng jiù néng . . .

Firecrackers are set off as knocking deafness Experts remind: A loud noise can...

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

她腹部胀气 原来横结肠有鞭虫

tā fù bù zhàng qì yuán lái héng jié cháng yǒu biān chóng

She had bloating in her abdomen and it turned out that there were whipworms in her transverse colon

BastillepostFeb 2026

十五五开局之年 港沪大湾区策马扬鞭 互补共振

shí wǔ wǔ kāi jú zhī nián gǎng hù dà wān qū cè mǎ yáng biān hù bǔ gòng zhèn

In the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Greater Bay Area rode horses and whipped each other to complement each other

中国新闻网_梳理天下新闻Feb 2026

热解读|“跃马扬鞭”开新局

rè jiě dòu yuè mǎ yáng biān kāi xīn jú

Hot Interpretation|" "Prancing horses and whips" to open a new game

Tatoeba

在新加坡,鞭刑是处置犯人的方法之一。

Zài Xīnjiāpō, biān xíng shì chǔzhì fànrén de fāngfǎ zhīyī.

In Singapore, one way to punish a criminal is to whip him or her.

Tatoeba

杰西鞭策小毛驴前进。

Jiéxī biāncè xiǎo máolǘ qiánjìn.

Jessie urged the little donkey forward.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 革 component

革 Radical Family — Characters sharing the leather radical

Homophones — Characters pronounced biān

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 鞭 (biān) mean in Chinese?
鞭 (biān) primarily means "whip or lash." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2194 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 鞭 have?
鞭 is written with 18 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 鞭?
The radical associated with 鞭 is 革 (leather). This radical appears in many characters related to leather.
What are the components of 鞭?
鞭 is composed of: 革 (semantic), 便 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰革便 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 鞭?
Common words with 鞭 include: 鞭子 (biān zi, "whip"); 鞭打 (biān dǎ, "to whip"); 鞭炮 (biān pào, "firecrackers"); 鞭策 (biān cè, "to spur on"); 皮鞭 (pí biān, "lash"). There are over 30 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 鞭 (biān)?
Several characters share the pronunciation biān: 变 (to change), 边 (side), 便 (convenient), 编 (to edit, to compile), and 6 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 鞭 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 鞭 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 鞭 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear spoken pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.