诃 (hē): to scold

诃 (hē) is a Chinese character meaning “to scold.” Outside the HSK 3.0 syllabus (CLEC 2022), it is composed of 讠 (semantic) and 可 (phonetic). It ranks #3885 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 诃 speech. Its radical form 讠 (speech) appears in many related characters such as 话 (huà, speech, words), 说 (shuō, to speak, to say), 请 (qǐng, please, to invite).

Spoken pronunciation
Radical: 讠 speech7 strokesFrequency #3885讠 semantic可 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to scold

Etymology & Origin

诃

pictophoneticspeech

Decomposition: ⿰讠可 (layout: left-right)

Components:讠semantic可phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
堂吉诃德proper-nountáng jí hē déDon Quixote
唐吉诃德táng jí hē déDon Quixote
契诃夫proper-nounqì hē fūAnton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904), Russian writer famous for his short stories and plays
摩诃婆罗多proper-nounmó hē pó luó duōMahābhārata, second great Indian epic after 羅摩衍那|罗摩衍那, possibly originally c. 4th century BC
诃子nounhē zǐchebulic myrobalan (Terminalia chebula)
摩诃adjectivemó hētransliteration of Sanskrit mahā, great
诃叱hē chìvariant of 呵斥
诃斥hē chìvariant of 呵斥
诃谴hē qiǎnvariant of 呵譴|呵谴
谴诃qiǎn hēto reprimand
10
Total compounds
40
As first character
20
As last character
40
As middle character

诃 appears in 10 compound words: 40 as the first character, 20 as the last, and 40 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

堂吉诃德Tángjíhēdé

Don Quixote

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

诃字在日常生活中使用频率较低。

hē zì zài rì cháng shēng huó zhōng shǐ yòng pín lǜ jiào dī .

The character "诃" is not used very often in everyday life.

中国新闻网·文化Sep 2026

在许东生妻子眼里，丈夫无异于向风车开战的堂吉诃德。

zài xǔ dōng shēng qī zǐ yǎn lǐ , zhàng fū wú yì yú xiàng fēng chē kāi zhàn de táng jí hē dé .

In the eyes of Xu Dongsheng’s wife, her husband was nothing less than Don Quixote tilting at windmills.

中国新闻网·文化Jul 2026

戴文昌 摄 御山圣容寺能成为丝路名刹，核心根源便是流传千年的刘萨诃与番禾瑞像传说。

dài wén chāng shè yù shān shèng róng sì néng chéng wéi sī lù míng chà , hé xīn gēn yuán biàn shì liú chuán qiān nián de liú sà hē yǔ fān hé ruì xiàng chuán shuō .

Photo by Dai Wenchang. The core reason why Shengrong Temple on Yushan Mountain has become a renowned Buddhist temple along the Silk Road lies in the millennia-old legend of Liu Saha and the Fanhe Sacred Image.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 讠 (speech) component

说shuō认rèn许xǔ计jì该gāi让ràng识shí请qǐng设shè议yì

Related Characters

话huà说shuō请qǐng认rèn识shí记jì讲jiǎng该gāi谢xiè试shì

Homophones — Characters pronounced hē

呵hē合hé

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 诃 (hē) mean in Chinese?
诃 (hē) primarily means "to scold." It is not part of the HSK 3.0 syllabus. It ranks #3885 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 诃 and 阿?
诃 (hē) and 阿 (ā) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 讠 vs 阝 (same 可 component).
How many strokes does 诃 have?
诃 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 诃?
The radical associated with 诃 is 讠 (speech). This radical appears in many characters related to speech.
What are the components of 诃?
诃 is composed of: 讠 (semantic), 可 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰讠可 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 诃?
Common words with 诃 include: 堂吉诃德 (táng jí hē dé, "Don Quixote"); 唐吉诃德 (táng jí hē dé, "Don Quixote"); 契诃夫 (qì hē fū, "Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904), Russian writer famous for his short stories and plays"); 摩诃婆罗多 (mó hē pó luó duō, "Mahābhārata, second great Indian epic after 羅摩衍那|罗摩衍那, possibly originally c. 4th century BC"); 诃子 (hē zǐ, "chebulic myrobalan (Terminalia chebula)"). There are over 10 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 诃 (hē)?
Several characters share the pronunciation hē: 呵 ((bound form) to scold), 合 (to close). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 诃 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
No. The simplified form is 诃 and the traditional form is 訶.

Practice writing 诃 with real-time feedback

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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.