恶 (è): evil, fierce, vicious, ugly, coarse, to harm

恶 (è) is a Chinese character meaning “evil.” Classified as HSK Level 6 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 亚 (phonetic) and 心 (semantic). It ranks #792 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 恶 heart. Its radical form 忄 (heart) appears in many related characters such as 忙 (máng, busy), 快 (kuài, fast, happy), 怎 (zěn, how).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. evil
  2. fierce
  3. vicious
  4. ugly
  5. coarse
  6. to harm

Etymology & Origin

恶

pictophoneticheart

Decomposition: ⿱亚心 (layout: top-bottom)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

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

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with 恶

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
恶心adjective/verbě xīnvariant of 惡心|恶心6
恶劣adjectiveè lièvile6

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
恶魔nounè módemon
邪恶adjectivexié èsinister
可恶adjectivekě wùrepulsive
罪恶nounzuì ècrime
恶梦nounè mèngnightmare
恶作剧nounè zuò jùpractical joke
厌恶verbyàn wùto loathe
恶意nounè yìmalice
恶化verbè huàto worsen
恶棍nounè gùnscoundrel
恶毒adjectiveè dúmalicious
恶人nounè rénevil person
憎恶verbzēng èto hate evil
丑恶adjectivechǒu èugly
恶臭nounè chòustink
100
Total compounds
69
As first character
24
As last character
7
As middle character

恶 appears in 100 compound words: 69 as the first character, 24 as the last, and 7 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 恶 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

劣liè
0.6736,878 co-occurrences
厌yàn
0.5943,545 co-occurrences
邪xié
0.5934,722 co-occurrences
搞gǎo
0.5532,052 co-occurrences
魔mó
0.5156,058 co-occurrences
肿zhǒng
0.511760 co-occurrences
呕ǒu
0.504431 co-occurrences
瘤liú
0.473802 co-occurrences
棍gùn
0.457606 co-occurrences
罪zuì
0.4533,088 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (27)

不念旧恶bùniànjiù'èHSK 6+

to not bear a grudge; to forgive and forget; to let bygones be bygones

phrase
惩恶劝善chéng'èquànshànHSK 6+

to punish the wicked and encourage the good

phrase
惩恶扬善chéng'èyángshànHSK 6+

to punish the evil and praise the good

phrase
除恶务尽chú'èwùjìnHSK 6+

one must be thorough in eradicating the evil

phrase
恶叉白赖è chā bái làiHSK 6+

evil behavior (idiom); brazen villainy

phrase
恶贯满盈èguànmǎnyíngHSK 7+

to have committed a great number of crimes or sins

phrase
恶名昭彰èmíngzhāozhāng

notorious, criminals doing all kinds of crimes and make their conducts well known

phrase
恶名昭着èmíngzhāozhù

notorious

phrase
恶性循环èxìng xúnhuánHSK 6+

vicious cycle

noun
恶性肿瘤èxìng zhǒngliúHSK 7+

malignant tumor

noun
改恶向善gǎi è xiàng shànHSK 6+

turn away from evil and follow virtue

phrase
鬼怕恶人guǐ pà è rénHSK 7+

lit. ghosts are afraid of evil too; an evil person fears someone even more evil (idiom)

phrase

Showing 12 of 27 idioms containing 恶.

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他恶甘情愿地帮助每一个需要帮助的人。

tā ě gān qíng yuàn dì bāng zhù měi yī gě xū yāo bāng zhù de rén .

He willingly helps everyone in need.

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

...万!蒋万安怒轰“趁火打劫” 指示局处严查恶霸行为

. . . wàn ! 蒋 wàn ān nù hōng chèn huǒ dǎ jié zhǐ shì jú chǔ yán chá è bà háng wéi

... Ten thousand! Jiang Wan'an angrily bombarded the bureau to "rob while the fire is in the fire" and instructed the bureau to strictly investigate the behavior of bullies

TvbsFeb 2026

天气恶劣要求换航线!印度医疗专机失联坠毁 机上...

tiān qì è liè yāo qiú huàn háng xiàn ! yìn dù yī liáo zhuān jī shī lián zhuì huǐ jī shàng . . .

Bad weather requires a change of route! Indian medical plane lost contact and crashed on board...

透视俄罗斯 | 俄罗斯新闻Feb 2026

约1.5万人参加:恶劣天气难挡布拉戈维申斯克谢肉节庆典

yuē 1 . 5 wàn rén cān jiā : è liè tiān qì nán dǎng bù lā gē wéi shēn sī kè xiè ròu jié qìng diǎn

About 15,000 people participated: bad weather could not stop the Blagoveshchensk Thanksgiving Meat Day celebration

東森新聞Feb 2026

恶劣!男疑拐浪浪回家 从5楼抛下画面曝

è liè ! nán yí guǎi làng làng huí jiā cóng 5 lóu pāo xià huà miàn pù

Bad! The man was suspected of abducting Langlang home and dropped the picture from the 5th floor to expose

Tatoeba

金钱是一切罪恶之源。

Jīnqián shì yīqiè zuì'è zhī yuán.

Money is the root of all evil.

Tatoeba

战争是绝对的邪恶。

Zhànzhēng shì juéduì de xié'è.

War is an absolute evil.

Tatoeba

罗伯特的健康状况日益恶化。

Luóbótè de jiànkāngzhuàngkuàng rìyì èhuà.

Robert's health deteriorated day by day.

Tatoeba

恶霸恶劣地践踏同学的午餐便当。

èbà èliè de jiàntà tóngxué de wǔcān biàndāng.

The bully stomped on his schoolmate’s lunchbox out of spite.

Tatoeba

可恶,家的钥匙到底放哪去了?

Kěwù, jiāde yàoshi dàodǐ fàng nǎ qù le?

Shit, where the fuck did I put my home keys?

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 心 (heart) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced è

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 恶 (è) mean in Chinese?
恶 (è) primarily means "evil." It is classified as HSK Level 6, making it an advanced character. It ranks #792 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 恶 and 丽?
恶 (è) and 丽 (lì) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 恶 (ugly) vs 丽 (beautiful).
How many strokes does 恶 have?
恶 is written with 10 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 恶?
The radical associated with 恶 is 忄 (heart). This radical appears in many characters related to heart.
What are the components of 恶?
恶 is composed of: 亚 (phonetic), 心 (semantic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿱亚心 with a top-bottom layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 恶?
Common words with 恶 include: 恶心 (ě xīn, "variant of 惡心|恶心"); 恶魔 (è mó, "demon"); 邪恶 (xié è, "sinister"); 可恶 (kě wù, "repulsive"); 罪恶 (zuì è, "crime"). There are over 100 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 恶 (è)?
Several characters share the pronunciation è: 额 (forehead), 俄 (Russia), 饿 (hungry), 鹅 (goose), and 5 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 恶 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 恶 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 恶 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.