阀 (fá): valve, clique

阀 (fá) is a Chinese character meaning “valve, clique.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 门 (semantic) and 伐 (phonetic). It ranks #2541 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 阀 gate. Its radical form 门 (gate) appears in many related characters such as 门 (mén, door, gate), 间 (jiān, room, between), 闪 (shǎn, to flash, to dodge).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 门 gate9 strokesFrequency #2541门 semantic伐 phonetic

Definitions

  1. valve, clique

Etymology & Origin

阀

pictophoneticgate

Decomposition: ⿵门伐 (layout: surround-from-top)

Components:门semantic伐phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
阀门fá ménvalve (mechanical)
军阀jūn fámilitary clique
安全阀ān quán fásafety valve
节流阀jié liú fáa throttle
财阀cái fátycoon
直系军阀zhí xì jūn fáthe Zhili faction of the Northern Warlords
军阀混战jūn fá hùn zhànincessant fighting between warlords
北洋军阀běi yáng jūn fáthe Northern Warlords (1912-1927)
奉系军阀fèng xì jūn fáFengtian clique (of northern warlords)
吸入阀xī rù fásuction valve
皖系军阀wǎn xì jūn fáAnhui faction of Northern Warlords 1911-c.1929
桂系军阀guì xì jūn fáGuangxi warlord faction, from 1911-1930
门阀mén fárich and powerful family
底阀dǐ fábottom valve
球阀qiú fáball valve
21
Total compounds
10
As first character
86
As last character
5
As middle character

阀 appears in 21 compound words: 10 as the first character, 86 as the last, and 5 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 阀 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

军jūn
0.53717,340 co-occurrences
财cái
0.5243,144 co-occurrences
门mén
0.4704,374 co-occurrences
拧níng
0.44536 co-occurrences
割gē
0.420630 co-occurrences
气qì
0.3891,290 co-occurrences
混hùn
0.3851,152 co-occurrences
洋yáng
0.3841,308 co-occurrences
压yā
0.377654 co-occurrences
闸zhá
0.375144 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

北洋军阀Běiyáng JūnfáHSK 7+

Beiyang Army

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

军阀混战时期，百姓生活很苦。

Jūnfá hùnzhàn shíqí, bǎixìng shēnghuó hěn kǔ.

During the warlord era, people's lives were very hard.

Character Family

门 Radical Family — Characters sharing the gate radical

阐chǎn阁gé闺guī阂hé阔kuò阎yán闸zhá闭bì闯chuǎng间jiān

Related Characters

门mén间jiān闪shǎn闭bì闹nào阅yuè闯chuǎng闲xián阔kuò闷mēn

Homophones — Characters pronounced fá

发fā乏fá伐fá罚fá法fǎ

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 阀 (fá) mean in Chinese?
阀 (fá) primarily means "valve, clique." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2541 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 阀 have?
阀 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 阀?
The radical associated with 阀 is 门 (gate). This radical appears in many characters related to gate.
What are the components of 阀?
阀 is composed of: 门 (semantic), 伐 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿵门伐 with a surround-from-top layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 阀?
Common words with 阀 include: 阀门 (fá mén, "valve (mechanical)"); 军阀 (jūn fá, "military clique"); 安全阀 (ān quán fá, "safety valve"); 节流阀 (jié liú fá, "a throttle"); 财阀 (cái fá, "tycoon"). There are over 21 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 阀 (fá)?
Several characters share the pronunciation fá: 发 (to send out), 乏 (short of), 伐 (to cut down), 罚 (to punish), and 1 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 阀 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
No. The simplified form is 阀 and the traditional form is 閥.

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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.