挂 (guà): to hang, to suspend (from a hook etc), to hang up (the phone), (of a line) to be dead

挂 (guà) is a Chinese character meaning “to hang.” Classified as HSK Level 4 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 扌 (semantic) and 圭 (phonetic). It ranks #1226 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 挂 hand. Its radical form 扌 (hand) appears in many related characters such as 手 (shǒu, hand), 打 (dǎ, hit, make), 找 (zhǎo, to look for).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. to hang
  2. to suspend (from a hook etc)
  3. to hang up (the phone)
  4. (of a line) to be dead

Etymology & Origin

挂

pictophonetichand

Decomposition: ⿰扌圭 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

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

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with 挂

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
挂号verbguà hàoto register (at a hospital etc)5

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
牵挂verbqiān guàto worry about
挂念verbguà niànto feel anxious about
悬挂verbxuán guàto suspend
挂毯nounguà tǎntapestry
挂钩verbguà gōuto couple
挂号信nounguà hào xìnregistered letter
挂彩verbguà cǎito decorate for festive occasions
挂心verbguà xīnto worry
挂名verbguà míngto attach sb's name to (a role)
挂车nounguà chētrailer
挂牌verbguà páilit. to hang up a plate
挂锁nounguà suǒpadlock
记挂verbjì guà(dialect) to keep thinking about (sth)
挂历nounguà lìwall calendar
倒挂verbdào guàlit. to hang upside down
90
Total compounds
61
As first character
21
As last character
18
As middle character

挂 appears in 90 compound words: 61 as the first character, 21 as the last, and 18 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 挂 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

悬xuán
0.66410,856 co-occurrences
钩gōu
0.5761,222 co-occurrences
舆yú
0.502558 co-occurrences
牌pái
0.4807,378 co-occurrences
毯tǎn
0.473320 co-occurrences
檐yán
0.440278 co-occurrences
劈pī
0.435134 co-occurrences
吊diào
0.424498 co-occurrences
轴zhóu
0.423528 co-occurrences
脖bó
0.421122 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (5)

不足挂齿bùzúguàchǐHSK 5+

not worth mentioning; nothing to speak of

phrase
挂一漏万guàyīlòuwànHSK 5+

to be inexhaustive; to leave many important items out

phrase
牛角挂书niú jiǎo guà shūHSK 4+

lit. to hang one's books on cow horns (idiom); fig. to be diligent in one's studies

phrase

very anxious and unable to set one's mind at ease

phrase
无牵无挂wúqiānwúguàHSK 6+

to be free from worries; to be carefree

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

请把外套挂在衣架上,不要乱扔。

Qǐng bǎ wàitào guà zài yījià shàng, bùyào luàn rēng.

Please hang your coat on the hanger; don't throw it around.

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

...尖峰期、大型活动常塞爆 民众连署盼车厢加挂至6节

. . . jiān fēng qī , dà xíng huó dòng cháng sāi bào mín zhòng lián shǔ pàn chē xiāng jiā guà zhì 6 jié

... During peak periods and large-scale events, people jointly signed to hope that the carriage would be increased to 6 sections

NewsFeb 2026

电话一接就挂恐被盯上!Whoscall揭内幕:年逾8...

diàn huà yī jiē jiù guà kǒng bèi dīng shàng ! jiē nèi mù nián yú . . .

As soon as the phone is answered, I am afraid of being targeted! Whoscall reveals the inside story: over 8 years old...

UnwireFeb 2026

的士车队难敌网约平台 业界洽谈高德滴滴“挂单”求生

de shì chē duì nán dí wǎng yuē píng tái yè jiè qià tán gāo dé dī dī guà dān qiú shēng

The taxi fleet is difficult to compete with the online ride-hailing platform, and the industry negotiates AutoNavi Didi's "pending order" to survive

It之家Feb 2026

... macOS 26.3 Tahoe 无法挂载外接磁盘

. . . . wú fǎ guà zài wài jiē cí pán

macOS 26.3 Tahoe cannot mount external disks

StheadlineFeb 2026

惊吓画面|12岁女童跌出滑雪缆车吊挂8米高空 直坠救援网外受伤

jīng hè huà miàn 1 2 suì nǚ tóng diē chū huá xuě lǎn chē diào guà 8 mǐ gāo kōng zhí zhuì jiù yuán wǎng wài shòu shāng

A 12-year-old girl fell out of the ski lift and was suspended 8 meters above the rescue net and was injured

Tatoeba

把那幅画挂到墙上。

Bǎ nà fú huà guà dào qiáng shàng.

Hang that picture on the wall.

Tatoeba

你看似对这世间已了无牵挂。

Nǐ kànsì duì zhè shìjiān yǐ le wú qiānguà.

You look as if you don't have a care in the world.

Tatoeba

他把一盏灯挂在了天花板上。

Tā bǎ yī zhǎn dēng guà zài le tiānhuābǎn shàng.

He hung a lamp from the ceiling.

Tatoeba

这艘船挂着美国国旗。

Zhè sōu chuán guà zhe Měiguó guóqí.

The ship was flying the American flag.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 扌 (hand) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced guà

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 挂 (guà) mean in Chinese?
挂 (guà) primarily means "to hang." It is classified as HSK Level 4, making it an upper-intermediate character. It ranks #1226 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 挂 and 在?
挂 (guà) and 在 (zài) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 挂 (dead) vs 在 (alive).
How many strokes does 挂 have?
挂 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 挂?
The radical associated with 挂 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 挂?
挂 is composed of: 扌 (semantic), 圭 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌圭 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 挂?
Common words with 挂 include: 牵挂 (qiān guà, "to worry about"); 挂念 (guà niàn, "to feel anxious about"); 悬挂 (xuán guà, "to suspend"); 挂毯 (guà tǎn, "tapestry"); 挂钩 (guà gōu, "to couple"). There are over 90 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 挂 (guà)?
Several characters share the pronunciation guà: 卦 (divinatory diagram). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 挂 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
No. The simplified form is 挂 and the traditional form is 掛.

Practice writing 挂 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.