赫 (hè): awe-inspiring, abbr. for 赫茲|赫兹, hertz (Hz)

赫 (hè) is a Chinese character meaning “awe-inspiring.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 赤 (structural) and 赤 (structural). It ranks #1338 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 赫 blushing 赤 bright red 赤. Its radical form 赤 (red) appears in many related characters such as 赤 (chì, red).

Spoken pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 赤 red14 strokesFrequency #1338赤 structural

Definitions

  1. awe-inspiring
  2. abbr. for 赫茲|赫兹, hertz (Hz)

Etymology & Origin

赫

ideographicBlushing 赤 bright red 赤

Decomposition: ⿰赤赤 (layout: left-right)

Components:赤structural

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
赫尔proper-nounhè ěrHull (name)
显赫adjectivexiǎn hèillustrious
巴赫proper-nounbā hèJohann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), German composer
赫鲁晓夫proper-nounhè lǔ xiǎo fuNikita Khrushchev (1894–1971), secretary-general of Soviet Communist Party 1953–1964
兆赫nounzhào hèmegahertz
赫伯特hè bó tèHerbert (name)
赫尔辛基proper-nounhè ěr xīn jīHelsinki (Swedish Helsingfors), capital of Finland
赫兹proper-nounhè zīhertz (Hz), unit of frequency
赫赫有名phrasehè hè yǒu míngillustrious
赫然adjectivehè ránwith astonishment
拉赫曼尼诺夫proper-nounlā hè màn ní nuò fūRachmaninoff or Rachmaninov (name)
谢赫nounxiè hèXie He (479-502), portrait painter from Qi of Southern dynasties 南齊|南齐
赫赫adjectivehè hèbrilliant
马赫proper-nounmǎ hè(physics) Mach
舒马赫proper-nounshū mǎ hèMichael Schumacher (1969-), former German racing driver
86
Total compounds
49
As first character
21
As last character
30
As middle character

赫 appears in 86 compound words: 49 as the first character, 21 as the last, and 30 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 赫 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

凌líng
0.55923 co-occurrences
晓xiǎo
0.4933,056 co-occurrences
巴bā
0.48521,184 co-occurrences
尔ěr
0.47423,960 co-occurrences
拉lā
0.46122,738 co-occurrences
雷léi
0.45811,098 co-occurrences
斯sī
0.45534,046 co-occurrences
辛xīn
0.4554,616 co-occurrences
舒shū
0.4502,642 co-occurrences
兹zī
0.4472,964 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (9)

赫尔辛基Hè'ěrxīnjīHSK 7+

Helsinki (a city, the capital city of Finland)

赫耳墨斯Hè'ěrmòsīHSK 7+

Hermes

赫赫有名hèhèyǒumíngHSK 7+

having a great reputation; celebrated; illustrious

phrase
赫鲁晓夫HèlǔxiǎofūHSK 7+

a transliteration of the Russian surname Хрущёв (Xruščóv), Khrushchev

赫鲁雪夫HèlǔxuěfūHSK 7+

a transliteration of the Russian surname Хрущёв (Xruščóv), Khrushchev

赫斯提亚HèsītíyàHSK 7+

Hestia

卡塔赫纳KǎtǎhènàHSK 7+

Cartagena (a city in Colombia)

烜赫一时xuǎn hè yī shíHSK 7+

to enjoy a short-lived fame or position of power

phrase

Showing 8 of 9 idioms containing 赫.

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

学习赫字需要反复练习,才能写得工整。

xué xí hè zì xū yāo fǎn fù liàn xí , cái néng xiě dé gōng zhěng .

Mastering the character "赫" requires repeated practice to achieve neat and precise writing.

StheadlineFeb 2026

欧霸|森林主场1:2负费伦巴治仍晋级 赫臣奥杜尔成救世主

ōu bà sēn lín zhǔ chǎng 1 : 2 fù fèi lún bā zhì réng jìn jí hè chén ào dù ěr chéng jiù shì zhǔ

Forest lost 1:2 at home to Ferenbach and still advanced, and Hutson Odul became the savior

中時新聞網Feb 2026

李洙赫帅到像AI“肉麻台词狂撩Jisoo” 本...

lǐ 洙 hè shuài dào xiàng A I ròu má tái cí kuáng 撩 J i s o o běn . . .

Lee so-hyuk is so handsome that he is like an AI "fleshy line crazy flirting with Jisoo" Ben...

马来西亚诗华日报新闻网Feb 2026

王赫奇:越来越多外国人来马过新年?

wáng hè qí : yuè lái yuè duō wài guó rén lái mǎ guò xīn nián ?

Wang Heqi: More and more foreigners are coming to Malaysia for the New Year?

WorldjournalFeb 2026

冬奥/男子4人雪车洛赫纳再登顶 马尔吉斯创5金纪录

dōng ào nán zǐ 4 rén xuě chē 洛 hè nà zài dēng dǐng mǎ ěr jí sī chuàng 5 jīn jì lù

Winter Olympics/Men's 4-man bobsleigh, Lochner reached the top again, and Margis set a 5-gold record

LtnFeb 2026

台中某饭店男租客多日未见 警消开门赫见已尸僵

tái zhōng mǒu fàn diàn nán zū kè duō rì wèi jiàn jǐng xiāo kāi mén hè jiàn yǐ shī jiāng

A male tenant of a hotel in Taichung has not been seen for many days, and the police opened the door, and he saw that he was dead

Tatoeba

布拉赫为一千多颗恒星做了编目。

Bù lā hè wèi yī qiān duō kē héngxīng zuò le biānmù.

Brahe catalogued over 1000 stars.

Tatoeba

我住在马斯特里赫特。

Wǒ zhù zài Mǎsītèlǐhètè.

I live in Maastricht.

Character Family

赤 Radical Family — Characters sharing the red radical

Related Characters

Homophones — Characters pronounced hè

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 赫 (hè) mean in Chinese?
赫 (hè) primarily means "awe-inspiring." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #1338 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 赫 have?
赫 is written with 14 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 赫?
The radical associated with 赫 is 赤 (red). This radical appears in many characters related to red.
What are the components of 赫?
赫 is composed of: 赤 (structural), 赤 (structural). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰赤赤 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 赫?
Common words with 赫 include: 赫尔 (hè ěr, "Hull (name)"); 显赫 (xiǎn hè, "illustrious"); 巴赫 (bā hè, "Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), German composer"); 赫鲁晓夫 (hè lǔ xiǎo fu, "Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971), secretary-general of Soviet Communist Party 1953–1964"); 兆赫 (zhào hè, "megahertz"). There are over 86 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 赫 (hè)?
Several characters share the pronunciation hè: 和 (and, peace), 合 (to close), 何 (what, how), 河 (river), and 6 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 赫 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 赫 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 赫 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.