鬓 (bìn): temples, hair on the temples

鬓 (bìn) is a Chinese character meaning “temples.” Outside the HSK 3.0 syllabus (CLEC 2022), it is composed of 髟 (semantic) and 宾 (phonetic). It ranks #3634 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 鬓 hair. Its radical form 髟 (hair) appears in many related characters such as 髦 (máo, bang (hair)), 髯 (rán, beard).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. temples
  2. hair on the temples

Etymology & Origin

鬓

pictophonetichair

Decomposition: ⿱髟宾 (layout: top-bottom)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
鬓角nounbìn jiǎosideburns
鬓发nounbìn fàhair on the temples
两鬓斑白liǎng bìn bān bái(idiom) to have gray hair at the temples
鬓毛nounbìn máohair on the temples
鬓脚bìn jiǎovariant of 鬢角|鬓角
云鬓nounyún bìna woman's beautiful, thick hair
耳鬓厮磨phraseěr bìn sī mólit. to play together ear to ear and temple to temple (idiom)
7
Total compounds
57
As first character
14
As last character
29
As middle character

鬓 appears in 7 compound words: 57 as the first character, 14 as the last, and 29 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

耳鬓厮磨ěrbìnsīmó

to have a close childhood relationship; (of a couple) very intimate; deeply in love

phrase

Example Sentences

中国新闻网·文化Aug 2026

他的头发早已白了大半,两鬓染霜。

tā de tóu fā zǎo yǐ bái le dà bàn , liǎng bìn rǎn shuāng .

Most of his hair had long since turned white, and his temples were streaked with gray.

中国新闻网·文化Aug 2026

二十余年荧幕生涯,昔日少年眉目未改,只是鬓角已生出白发。

èr shí yú nián yíng mù shēng yá , xī rì shǎo nián méi mù wèi gǎi , zhī shì bìn jiǎo yǐ shēng chū bái fā .

After more than twenty years in the film industry, the once-young actor’s features remain unchanged, though gray hairs have begun to appear at his temples.

中国新闻网·体育May 2026

在一次活动中,“教练群体大多两鬓斑白,当时40多岁的我居然是年轻人”。

zài yī cì huó dòng zhōng , jiào liàn qún tǐ dà duō liǎng bìn bān bái , dāng shí 4 0 duō suì de wǒ jū rán shì nián qīng rén .

At one event, “most of the coaches had gray hair at their temples, and I—who was in my 40s at the time—was actually considered one of the younger ones.”

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 髟 (hair) component

Related Characters

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 鬓 (bìn) mean in Chinese?
鬓 (bìn) primarily means "temples." It is not part of the HSK 3.0 syllabus. It ranks #3634 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 鬓 have?
鬓 is written with 20 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 鬓?
The radical associated with 鬓 is 髟 (hair). This radical appears in many characters related to hair.
What are the components of 鬓?
鬓 is composed of: 髟 (semantic), 宾 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿱髟宾 with a top-bottom layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 鬓?
Common words with 鬓 include: 鬓角 (bìn jiǎo, "sideburns"); 鬓发 (bìn fà, "hair on the temples"); 两鬓斑白 (liǎng bìn bān bái, "(idiom) to have gray hair at the temples"); 鬓毛 (bìn máo, "hair on the temples"); 鬓脚 (bìn jiǎo, "variant of 鬢角|鬓角"). There are over 7 compound words containing this character.
Is 鬓 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
No. The simplified form is 鬓 and the traditional form is 鬢.

Practice writing 鬓 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.