(cāng): barn, granary, storehouse

(cāng) is a Chinese character meaning “barn.” Classified as HSK Level 6 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (structural) and (structural). It ranks #1861 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, simplified form of 倉; grains 食 kept in storage 口. Its radical form (person) appears in many related characters such as (rén, person), (shén, what), (jīn, now).

Native pronunciation

Definitions

  1. barn
  2. granary
  3. storehouse

Etymology & Origin

ideographicSimplified form of 倉; grains 食 kept in storage 口

Decomposition: ⿱人㔾 (layout: top-bottom)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4

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

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
nouncāng kùdepot6

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
gǔ cāngbarn
cāng cùall of a sudden
cāng shǔhamster
qīng cāngto take an inventory of stock
liáng cānggranary
cāng chǔto store in a warehouse
cāng huángin a panic
àn dù chén cānglit. secretly crossing the Wei River 渭河[Wei4 He2] at Chencang (idiom, refers to a stratagem used by Liu Bang 劉邦|刘邦[Li...
cāng huángvariant of 倉皇|仓皇[cang1 huang2]
dōng cāng lǐDongchang-ni, North Korean missile launch site on Yellow Sea, 70 km from Chinese border
zhēng cāng yuànShōsō-in, a timber structure in Nara, Japan, built to house hundreds of artifacts bequeathed to the Tōdai-ji temple b...
tài cāng shìTaicang, a county-level city in Suzhou City 蘇州市|苏州市[Su1 zhou1 Shi4], Jiangsu
chí cāng liàngposition (finance)
cāng shān qūCangshan, a district of Fuzhou City 福州市[Fu2 zhou1 Shi4], Fujian
使yán cāng shǐ jié tuánthe Iwakura mission (Japanese diplomatic and exploratory mission to US and Europe of 1871)
54
Total compounds
33
As first character
43
As last character
24
As middle character

appears in 54 compound words: 33 as the first character, 43 as the last, and 24 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 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

lóng
0.75812 co-occurrences
0.69712 co-occurrences
0.64025,890 co-occurrences
wěi
0.63713 co-occurrences
lào
0.60410 co-occurrences
0.60012 co-occurrences
liáng
0.5765,490 co-occurrences
duàn
0.54812 co-occurrences
chǔ
0.5395,002 co-occurrences
kùn
0.51110 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (3)

àndùchéncāngHSK 7+

short for 明修棧道,暗渡陳倉/明修栈道,暗渡陈仓 (míngxiūzhàndào, àndùchéncāng, “to do one thing under cover of another”)

phrase
cāng huáng shī cuòHSK 6+

flustered; ruffled; disconcerted

phrase
lián cāng mù fǔHSK 6+

Kamakura shogunate 1192-1333

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

品很好,在村里很受尊敬。

tā cāng pǐn hěn hǎo , zài cūn lǐ hěn shòu zūn jìng .

He is a man of integrity and is highly respected in the village.

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

蒋万安推3大新政挨批促上路 绿议员叹欠缺沟通:别把好事给做坏

蒋 wàn ān tuī 3 dà xīn zhèng āi pī cāng cù shàng lù lǜ yì yuán tàn qiàn quē gōu tōng : bié bǎ hǎo shì gěi zuò huài

Jiang Wan'an pushed the three new policies and was criticized for rushing on the road, and the green lawmaker lamented the lack of communication: Don't do good things badly

Yahoo FinanceFeb 2026

2月期指未平合约减少29426张至37047张

2 yuè qī zhǐ wèi píng cāng gě yuē jiǎn shǎo 2 9 4 2 6 zhāng zhì 3 7 0 4 7 zhāng

The open interest of the February index decreased by 29,426 to 37,047

Yahoo FinanceFeb 2026

外汇基金“开”撑北都基建 港元会否再被狙击?

wài huì jī jīn kāi cāng chēng běi dōu jī jiàn gǎng yuán huì fǒu zài bèi 狙 jī ?

Will the Hong Kong dollar be sniped again?

StheadlineFeb 2026

上水“怪兽”两幼犬被困笼内 一狗断尾惹乌蝇 区议员...

shàng shuǐ guài shòu cāng liǎng yòu quǎn bèi kùn lóng nèi yī gǒu duàn wěi rě wū yíng qū yì yuán . . .

Two puppies in the "monster warehouse" in Sheung Shui were trapped in a cage, and a dog cut off its tail to provoke flies District councilor...

Tatoeba

是谁忘了把库的门锁上?

Shì shéi wàng le bǎ cāngkù de mén suǒshàng?

Who was it that forgot to lock the door of the warehouse?

Tatoeba

鹰鸮和鸮有什么区别?

Yīngxiāo hé cāngxiāo yǒu shénme qūbié?

What's the difference between an eagle-owl and a barn owl?

Tatoeba

暂时藏在库里好了。

Zànshí cáng zài cāngkù lǐ hǎo le.

Hide it inside the warehouse for now.

Tatoeba

为躲避风暴,我们躲到了附近的一个谷内。

Wèi duǒbì fēngbào, wǒmen duǒ dào le fùjìn de yī gè gǔcāng nèi.

We took refuge from the storm in a nearby barn.

Tatoeba

汤姆在库前等玛丽。

Tāngmǔ zài cāngkù qián děng Mǎlì.

Tom waited for Mary in front of the warehouse.

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced cāng

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 仓 (cāng) mean in Chinese?
仓 (cāng) primarily means "barn." It is classified as HSK Level 6, making it an advanced character. It ranks #1861 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 仓 have?
仓 is written with 4 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 仓?
The radical associated with 仓 is 亻 (person). This radical appears in many characters related to person.
What are the components of 仓?
仓 is composed of: 人 (structural), 㔾 (structural). Its IDS decomposition is ⿱人㔾 with a top-bottom layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 仓?
Common words with 仓 include: 仓库 (cāng kù, "depot"); 谷仓 (gǔ cāng, "barn"); 仓促 (cāng cù, "all of a sudden"); 仓鼠 (cāng shǔ, "hamster"); 清仓 (qīng cāng, "to take an inventory of stock"). There are over 54 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 仓 (cāng)?
Several characters share the pronunciation cāng: 沧 ((bound form) (of water, esp. the ocean) deep blue-green), 苍 (dark blue), 舱 (cabin). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 仓 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 仓 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear native 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.