炳 (bǐng): bright, brilliant, luminous

炳 (bǐng) is a Chinese character meaning “bright.” Outside the HSK 3.0 syllabus (CLEC 2022), it is composed of 火 (semantic) and 丙 (phonetic). It ranks #4019 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 炳 fire. Its radical form 火 (fire) appears in many related characters such as 火 (huǒ, fire), 烟 (yān, smoke), 烧 (shāo, to burn, to cook).

Spoken pronunciation
Radical: 火 fire9 strokesFrequency #4019火 semantic丙 phonetic

Definitions

  1. bright
  2. brilliant
  3. luminous

Etymology & Origin

炳

pictophoneticfire

Decomposition: ⿰火丙 (layout: left-right)

Components:火semantic丙phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
彪炳biāo bǐng(literary) (of deeds, accomplishments etc) to shine brightly (in the annals of history etc)
炳然bǐng ránto be manifest for everyone to see
炳文bǐng wénluminous style
彪炳千古phrasebiāo bǐng qiān gǔto shine through the ages (idiom)
炳著bǐng zhùeminent
炳耀bǐng yàobright and luminous
章炳麟zhāng bǐng línZhang Taiyan 章太炎 (1869-1936), scholar, journalist, revolutionary and leading intellectual around the time of the Xinh...
炳烛verbbǐng zhúby bright candlelight
炳焕bǐng huànbright and brilliant
炳蔚bǐng wèisplendid (of writing style)
10
Total compounds
70
As first character
10
As last character
20
As middle character

炳 appears in 10 compound words: 70 as the first character, 10 as the last, and 20 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

彪炳千古biāobǐngqiāngǔ

shining through the ages

phrase

Example Sentences

爱范儿Aug 2026

周炳枢表示，交易来自阿里整体战略聚焦。

zhōu bǐng shū biǎo shì , jiāo yì lái zì ā lǐ zhěng tǐ zhàn lüè jù jiāo .

Zhou Bingshu said the transaction stems from Alibaba's overall strategic focus.

中国新闻网·文化Aug 2026

徐行可毕生以访书、藏书、售书为业，与章炳麟、黄侃、马一浮、张宗祥等学者交游密切。

xú xíng kě bì shēng yǐ fǎng shū , zàng shū , shòu shū wéi yè , yǔ zhāng bǐng lín , huáng kǎn , mǎ yī fú , zhāng zōng xiáng děng xué zhě jiāo yóu mì qiē .

Xu Xingke spent his entire life searching for, collecting, and selling books, and maintained close friendships with scholars such as Zhang Binglin, Huang Kan, Ma Yifu, and Zhang Zongxiang.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 火 (fire) component

灵líng烟yān烦fán灯dēng烧shāo炮pào烂làn燃rán炼liàn煤méi

Related Characters

火huǒ烟yān烧shāo烤kǎo灯dēng炮pào炸zhà炒chǎo炖dùn爆bào

Homophones — Characters pronounced bǐng

柄bǐng

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 炳 (bǐng) mean in Chinese?
炳 (bǐng) primarily means "bright." It is not part of the HSK 3.0 syllabus. It ranks #4019 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 炳 and 暧?
炳 (bǐng) and 暧 (ài) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 炳 (bright) vs 暧 (dim).
How many strokes does 炳 have?
炳 is written with 9 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 炳?
The radical associated with 炳 is 火 (fire). This radical appears in many characters related to fire.
What are the components of 炳?
炳 is composed of: 火 (semantic), 丙 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰火丙 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 炳?
Common words with 炳 include: 彪炳 (biāo bǐng, "(literary) (of deeds, accomplishments etc) to shine brightly (in the annals of history etc)"); 炳然 (bǐng rán, "to be manifest for everyone to see"); 炳文 (bǐng wén, "luminous style"); 彪炳千古 (biāo bǐng qiān gǔ, "to shine through the ages (idiom)"); 炳著 (bǐng zhù, "eminent"). There are over 10 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 炳 (bǐng)?
Several characters share the pronunciation bǐng: 柄 (handle or shaft (of an axe etc)). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 炳 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 炳 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

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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.