呵 (hē): (bound form) to scold, to expel breath, (onom.) laughter (usu. reduplicated)

呵 (hē) is a Chinese character meaning “(bound form) to scold.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 口 (semantic) and 可 (phonetic). It ranks #1842 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 呵 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 mouth8 strokesFrequency #1842口 semantic可 phonetic

Definitions

  1. (bound form) to scold
  2. to expel breath
  3. (onom.) laughter (usu. reduplicated)

Etymology & Origin

呵

pictophoneticmouth

Decomposition: ⿰口可 (layout: left-right)

Components:口semantic可phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
呵呵hē hē(onom.) gentle laughter
呵护hē hùto bless
一气呵成yī qì hē chéngto do something at one go
呵欠hē qiànyawn
呵斥hē chìto berate
乐呵呵lè hē hēhappily
呵责hē zéto abuse
打呵欠dǎ hē qiànto yawn
呵喝hē hèto shout loudly
呵禁hē jìnto berate
叱呵chì hēto shout angrily
呵叱hē chìvariant of 呵斥[he1 chi4]
呵谴hē qiǎnto reprimand
谴呵qiǎn hēvariant of 譴訶|谴诃[qian3 he1]
14
Total compounds
64
As first character
14
As last character
21
As middle character

呵 appears in 14 compound words: 64 as the first character, 14 as the last, and 21 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 呵 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

哎āi
0.553144 co-occurrences
斥chì
0.531918 co-occurrences
嘿hēi
0.528150 co-occurrences
欠qiàn
0.481438 co-occurrences
笑xiào
0.419462 co-occurrences
厉lì
0.40384 co-occurrences
喂wéi
0.39336 co-occurrences
护hù
0.391678 co-occurrences
哦é
0.39042 co-occurrences
傻shǎ
0.36448 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

一气呵成yīqìhēchéngHSK 7+

to do something in one go; to do something without stopping; to flow smoothly and coherently

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他呵干舌燥地讲了两个小时，终于说服了大家。

tā ā gān jī zào dì jiǎng le liǎng gě xiǎo shí , zhōng yú shuō fú le dà jiā .

He talked for two hours until his voice was hoarse, finally convincing everyone.

光明网_新闻视野、文化视角、思想深度、理论高度Mar 2026

这里是呵护孩子心灵的“港湾”

zhè lǐ shì hē hù hái zǐ xīn líng de gǎng wān

This is a "safe haven" that nurtures children's hearts

Tatoeba

我始终不能理解看足球的乐趣，呵呵。

Wǒ shǐzhōng bù néng lǐjiě kàn zúqiú de lèqù, hēhē.

I have never been able to understand the joy of watching soccer, haha.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 呵 (hē) mean in Chinese?
呵 (hē) primarily means "(bound form) to scold." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #1842 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 呵 and 阿?
呵 (hē) and 阿 (ā) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 口 vs 阝 (same 可 component).
How many strokes does 呵 have?
呵 is written with 8 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 呵?
The radical associated with 呵 is 口 (mouth). This radical appears in many characters related to mouth.
What are the components of 呵?
呵 is composed of: 口 (semantic), 可 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰口可 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 呵?
Common words with 呵 include: 呵呵 (hē hē, "(onom.) gentle laughter"); 呵护 (hē hù, "to bless"); 一气呵成 (yī qì hē chéng, "to do something at one go"); 呵欠 (hē qiàn, "yawn"); 呵斥 (hē chì, "to berate"). There are over 14 compound words containing this character.
Is 呵 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 呵 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 呵 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear native pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

Download on theApp StoreGet it onGoogle Play

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.