吭 (háng): throat, to utter

吭 (háng) is a Chinese character meaning “throat.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 口 (semantic) and 亢 (phonetic). It ranks #2780 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 吭 mouth. Its radical form 口 (mouth) appears in many related characters such as 口 (kǒu, mouth), 叫 (jiào, to call, to be called), 右 (yòu, (bound form) right).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 口 mouth7 strokesFrequency #2780口 semantic亢 phonetic

Definitions

  1. throat
  2. to utter

Etymology & Origin

吭

pictophoneticmouth

Decomposition: ⿰口亢 (layout: left-right)

Components:口semantic亢phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
一声不吭yī shēng bù kēngto not say a word
吭声kēng shēngto utter a word
引吭高歌yǐn háng gāo gēto sing at the top of one's voice (idiom)
吭气kēng qìto utter a sound
吭哧kēng chito puff and blow
吭吭kēng kēng(onom.) coughing, grunting etc
6
Total compounds
67
As first character
17
As last character
17
As middle character

吭 appears in 6 compound words: 67 as the first character, 17 as the last, and 17 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 吭 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

敢gǎn
0.462102 co-occurrences
声shēng
0.39296 co-occurrences
引yǐn
0.344108 co-occurrences
不bù
0.341402 co-occurrences
歌gē
0.328114 co-occurrences
景jǐng
0.30848 co-occurrences
高gāo
0.296138 co-occurrences
死sǐ
0.27942 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

引吭高歌yǐn háng gāo gēHSK 7+

to sing at the top of one's voice (idiom)

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

孩子们吭渴了，纷纷跑到饮水机前接水。

hái zǐ men háng kě le , fēn fēn pǎo dào yǐn shuǐ jī qián jiē shuǐ .

The children were parched and rushed to the water cooler to fill their cups.

Tatoeba

除非你有什么值得说的话要说，否则就别吭声。

Chúfēi nǐ yǒu shénme zhíde shuō dehuà yàoshuō, fǒuzé jiù bié kēngshēng.

Don't speak unless you have something worth saying.

Character Family

口 Radical Family — Characters sharing the mouth radical

啊a哎āi哀āi唉āi叭bā吧ba哺bǔ嘈cáo唱chàng嘲cháo

Related Characters

口kǒu叫jiào右yòu号hào吃chī同tóng名míng后hòu吗ma吧ba

Homophones — Characters pronounced háng

杭háng航háng行háng

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 吭 (háng) mean in Chinese?
吭 (háng) primarily means "throat." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2780 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 吭 and 坑?
吭 (háng) and 坑 (kēng) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 口 vs 土 (same 亢 component).
How many strokes does 吭 have?
吭 is written with 7 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 吭?
The radical associated with 吭 is 口 (mouth). This radical appears in many characters related to mouth.
What are the components of 吭?
吭 is composed of: 口 (semantic), 亢 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰口亢 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 吭?
Common words with 吭 include: 一声不吭 (yī shēng bù kēng, "to not say a word"); 吭声 (kēng shēng, "to utter a word"); 引吭高歌 (yǐn háng gāo gē, "to sing at the top of one's voice (idiom)"); 吭气 (kēng qì, "to utter a sound"); 吭哧 (kēng chi, "to puff and blow"). There are over 6 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 吭 (háng)?
Several characters share the pronunciation háng: 杭 (abbr. for Hangzhou 杭州), 航 (boat), 行 ((bound form) row). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 吭 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 吭 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.