哼 (hēng): to groan, to snort, to hum

哼 (hēng) is a Chinese character meaning “to groan.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 口 (semantic) and 亨 (phonetic). It ranks #1939 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 哼 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 mouth10 strokesFrequency #1939口 semantic亨 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to groan
  2. to snort
  3. to hum

Etymology & Origin

哼

pictophoneticmouth

Decomposition: ⿰口亨 (layout: left-right)

Components:口semantic亨phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
哼唱hēng chàngto hum
气哼哼qì hēng hēngenraged
哼唧hēng jiwhisper
哼儿哈儿hēng r hā rto hem and haw (loanword)
哼声hēng shēnghum
哼哧hēng chīto puff hard (e.g. after running)
哼哼唧唧hēng hēng jī jīwhining
嗯哼en hēnguh-huh
8
Total compounds
75
As first character
13
As last character
13
As middle character

哼 appears in 8 compound words: 75 as the first character, 13 as the last, and 13 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 哼 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

嗯ēn
0.673300 co-occurrences
唱chàng
0.4912,358 co-occurrences
歌gē
0.379864 co-occurrences
著zhù
0.357642 co-occurrences
句jù
0.34190 co-occurrences
哈hā
0.337258 co-occurrences
鼻bí
0.33448 co-occurrences
语yǔ
0.333282 co-occurrences
旋xuán
0.332126 co-occurrences
猪zhū
0.32330 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

哼儿哈儿hēng r hā rHSK 7+

to hem and haw (loanword)

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他哼才很好，能言善辩，是个出色的律师。

tā hēng cái hěn hǎo , néng yán shàn biàn , shì gě chū sè de lǜ shī .

He's quite the charmer, a smooth talker, and an outstanding lawyer.

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 hēng

恒héng横héng衡héng

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 哼 (hēng) mean in Chinese?
哼 (hēng) primarily means "to groan." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #1939 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 哼 and 烹?
哼 (hēng) and 烹 (pēng) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 口 vs 火 (same 亨 component).
How many strokes does 哼 have?
哼 is written with 10 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 哼?
The radical associated with 哼 is 口 (mouth). This radical appears in many characters related to mouth.
What are the components of 哼?
哼 is composed of: 口 (semantic), 亨 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰口亨 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 哼?
Common words with 哼 include: 哼唱 (hēng chàng, "to hum"); 气哼哼 (qì hēng hēng, "enraged"); 哼唧 (hēng ji, "whisper"); 哼儿哈儿 (hēng r hā r, "to hem and haw (loanword)"); 哼声 (hēng shēng, "hum"). There are over 8 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 哼 (hēng)?
Several characters share the pronunciation hēng: 恒 (permanent), 横 (horizontal), 衡 (to weigh). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 哼 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 哼 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 哼 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.