惮 (dàn): dread

惮 (dàn) is a Chinese character meaning “dread.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 忄 (semantic) and 单 (phonetic). It ranks #3040 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 惮 heart. Its radical form 忄 (heart) appears in many related characters such as 恨 (hèn, to hate), 情 (qíng, feeling, emotion), 快 (kuài, fast, happy).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 忄 heart11 strokesFrequency #3040忄 semantic单 phonetic

Definitions

  1. dread

Etymology & Origin

惮

pictophoneticheart

Decomposition: ⿰忄单 (layout: left-right)

Components:忄semantic单phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
肆无忌惮sì wú jì dànabsolutely unrestrained
忌惮jì dànto be afraid of the consequences
不惮bù dàn(literary) unafraid
3
Total compounds
0
As first character
100
As last character
0
As middle character

惮 appears in 3 compound words: 0 as the first character, 100 as the last, and 0 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 惮 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

忌jì
0.6942,586 co-occurrences
肆sì
0.609852 co-occurrences
无wú
0.4491,104 co-occurrences
畏wèi
0.429108 co-occurrences
颇pō
0.42284 co-occurrences
敬jìng
0.396210 co-occurrences
吏lì
0.375102 co-occurrences
虏lǔ
0.37336 co-occurrences
严yán
0.354126 co-occurrences
敢gǎn
0.33854 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

肆无忌惮sìwújìdànHSK 7+

brazen; unbridled; wanton; unscrupulous

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

虽然失败了，但他惮不气馁，继续努力。

suī rán shī bài le , dàn tā dàn bù qì něi , jì xù nǔ lì .

Although he failed, he didn't lose heart and kept trying.

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

各国忌惮川普报复料维持现有贸易协议 彭博点名欧印...

gè guó jì dàn chuān pǔ bào fù liào wéi chí xiàn yǒu mào yì xié yì 彭 bó diǎn míng ōu yìn . . .

Countries fear Trump's retaliation and are expected to maintain existing trade agreements Bloomberg names Europe and India...

Character Family

忄 Radical Family — Characters sharing the heart radical

怖bù惭cán惨cǎn憧chōng悴cuì悼dào惦diàn懂dǒng惰duò愤fèn

Related Characters

恨hèn情qíng快kuài怕pà忙máng性xìng怪guài慢màn懂dǒng惯guàn

Homophones — Characters pronounced dàn

弹dàn

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 惮 (dàn) mean in Chinese?
惮 (dàn) primarily means "dread." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #3040 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 惮 and 阐?
惮 (dàn) and 阐 (chǎn) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 忄 vs 门 (same 单 component).
How many strokes does 惮 have?
惮 is written with 11 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 惮?
The radical associated with 惮 is 忄 (heart). This radical appears in many characters related to heart.
What are the components of 惮?
惮 is composed of: 忄 (semantic), 单 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰忄单 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 惮?
Common words with 惮 include: 肆无忌惮 (sì wú jì dàn, "absolutely unrestrained"); 忌惮 (jì dàn, "to be afraid of the consequences"); 不惮 (bù dàn, "(literary) unafraid"). There are over 3 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 惮 (dàn)?
Several characters share the pronunciation dàn: 弹 (crossball). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 惮 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 惮 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.