涵 (hán): to contain, to include, culvert

涵 (hán) is a Chinese character meaning “to contain.” Classified as HSK Level 6 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 氵 (semantic) and 函 (phonetic). It ranks #2263 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 涵 water. Its radical form 氵 (water) appears in many related characters such as 水 (shuǐ, water), 汉 (hàn, Han ethnic group), 汽 (qì, steam).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. to contain
  2. to include
  3. culvert

Etymology & Origin

涵

pictophoneticwater

Decomposition: ⿰氵函 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

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

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with 涵

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
内涵nounnèi hánmeaningful content6

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
涵义nounhán yìcontent
涵盖verbhán gàito cover
包涵verbbāo hanto excuse
蕴涵verbyùn hánto contain
涵养nounhán yǎngto cultivate (personal qualities)
内涵意义nèi hán yì yì(semantics) connotative meaning
涵意hán yìcontent
意涵nounyì hán(Tw) meaning
涵江区hán jiāng qūHanjiang, a district of Putian City 莆田市, Fujian
涵管hán guǎnculvert pipe
海涵verbhǎi hán(polite expression) to be magnanimous enough to forgive or tolerate (one's errors or shortcomings)
茹古涵今rú gǔ hán jīnto take in (old and new experiences and sorrows)
汪道涵wāng dào hánWang Daohan (1915-2005), former president of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits
张韶涵zhāng sháo hánAngela Chang (1982-), Taiwanese pop singer and actress
涵括verbhán kuòto encompass
21
Total compounds
57
As first character
33
As last character
10
As middle character

涵 appears in 21 compound words: 57 as the first character, 33 as the last, and 10 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 涵 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

盖gài
0.66313,909 co-occurrences
蕴yùn
0.528841 co-occurrences
洞dòng
0.4031,124 co-occurrences
碧bì
0.398564 co-occurrences
意yì
0.3783,882 co-occurrences
渠qú
0.372300 co-occurrences
汪wāng
0.372420 co-occurrences
箱xiāng
0.370496 co-occurrences
划huá
0.36313 co-occurrences
了le
0.3538,366 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

茹古涵今rú gǔ hán jīn

to take in (old and new experiences and sorrows)

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

孩子们喜欢在清澈的涵边玩耍,捉小鱼小虾。

hái zǐ men xǐ huān zài qīng 澈 de hán biān wán shuǎ , zhuō xiǎo yú xiǎo xiā .

Children love to play along the clear stream, catching little fish and shrimp.

StheadlineFeb 2026

涵盖校长推荐入学计划等5措施 直资议会夥港...

hán gài jiào cháng tuī jiàn rù xué jì huá děng 5 cuò shī zhí zī yì huì 夥 gǎng . . .

Covering 5 measures including the Principal's Recommendation Admission Scheme DSS Council partners with Hong Kong...

StheadlineFeb 2026

直资议会夥港大助非本地生来港升学 涵盖校长推荐入学计划等5措施

zhí zī yì huì 夥 gǎng dà zhù fēi běn dì shēng lái gǎng shēng xué hán gài jiào cháng tuī jiàn rù xué jì huá děng 5 cuò shī

The DSS Council partners with HKU to help non-local students study in Hong Kong and covers 5 measures including the President's Recommendation Admission Scheme

Nownews今日新聞Feb 2026

舒涵事业起飞却逮到老公出轨!崩溃到不知道要先...

shū hán shì yè qǐ fēi què dǎi dào lǎo gōng chū guǐ ! bēng kuì dào bù zhī dào yāo xiān . . .

Shu Han's career took off but caught her husband cheating! Collapsed so much that I didn't know what to do first...

東方日報Feb 2026

北区云向预告一周内上载价单 首批会涵盖不同景观

běi qū yún xiàng yù gào yī zhōu nèi shàng zài jià dān shǒu pī huì hán gài bù tóng jǐng guàn

North District Cloud announced that the price list will be uploaded within a week, and the first batch will cover different landscapes

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

刘大年/中国大陆贸易顺差的意涵

liú dà nián zhōng guó dà lù mào yì shùn chā de yì hán

Liu Danian/The meaning of Chinese mainland's trade surplus

Tatoeba

逆境顺境看襟度,临喜临怒看涵养。

Nìjìng shùnjìng kàn jīndù, lín xǐ lín nù kàn hányǎng.

Adversity and prosperity reveal one's breadth of mind; joy and anger test one's self-restraint.

Tatoeba

在中文里面,饺子和“交子”谐音,因而具有丰富的文化涵义。

Zài Zhōngwén lǐmiàn, jiǎozi hé "jiāo zǐ " xiéyīn, yīn'ér jùyǒu fēngfù de wénhuà hányì.

In Chinese, 'dumpling' and 'first exchange' are homophones, so they have a rich cultural association.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 氵 (water) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced hán

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 涵 (hán) mean in Chinese?
涵 (hán) primarily means "to contain." It is classified as HSK Level 6, making it an advanced character. It ranks #2263 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 涵 have?
涵 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 涵?
The radical associated with 涵 is 氵 (water). This radical appears in many characters related to water.
What are the components of 涵?
涵 is composed of: 氵 (semantic), 函 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰氵函 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 涵?
Common words with 涵 include: 内涵 (nèi hán, "meaningful content"); 涵义 (hán yì, "content"); 涵盖 (hán gài, "to cover"); 包涵 (bāo han, "to excuse"); 蕴涵 (yùn hán, "to contain"). There are over 21 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 涵 (hán)?
Several characters share the pronunciation hán: 汉 (Han ethnic group), 含 (to keep in the mouth), 喊 (to yell), 韩 (Han, one of the Seven Hero States of the Warring States 戰國七雄|战国七雄), and 5 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 涵 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 涵 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 涵 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.