忽 (hū): to neglect, to overlook, to ignore, suddenly

忽 (hū) is a Chinese character meaning “to neglect.” Classified as HSK Level 4 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 勿 (phonetic) and 心 (semantic). It ranks #912 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 忽 heart. Its radical form 忄 (heart) appears in many related characters such as 忙 (máng, busy), 快 (kuài, fast, happy), 怎 (zěn, how).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. to neglect
  2. to overlook
  3. to ignore
  4. suddenly

Etymology & Origin

忽

pictophoneticheart

Decomposition: ⿱勿心 (layout: top-bottom)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

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

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with 忽

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
忽略verbhū lüèto neglect6
忽视verbhū shìto neglect5
忽然adverbhū ránsuddenly4

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
疏忽verbshū huto neglect
忽悠verbhū youto rock
玩忽职守phrasewán hū zhí shǒuto neglect one's duty
飘忽adjectivepiāo hūswiftly moving
疏忽大意shū hu dà yìoversight
忽必烈proper-nounhū bì lièKhubilai Khan (1215-1294), grandson of Genghis Khan 成吉思汗, first Yuan dynasty emperor, reigned 1260-1294
忽忽adjectivehū hūfleeting (of quick passage time)
忽闪verbhū shǎnto glitter
忽地adjectivehū desuddenly
黑忽忽adjectivehēi hū hūvariant of 黑糊糊
忽上忽下hū shàng hū xiàto fluctuate sharply
忽略不计hū lüè bù jìto disregard (sth seen as negligible)
忽而adverbhū érsuddenly
忽忽不乐hū hū bù lèdisappointed and unhappy
积于忽微jī yú hū wēito accumulate tiny quantities (idiom)
35
Total compounds
60
As first character
23
As last character
17
As middle character

忽 appears in 35 compound words: 60 as the first character, 23 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 忽 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

略lüè
0.58313,537 co-occurrences
疏shū
0.5423,338 co-occurrences
秃tū
0.536440 co-occurrences
烈liè
0.5083,852 co-occurrences
必bì
0.4823,876 co-occurrences
怠dài
0.468206 co-occurrences
视shì
0.4675,030 co-occurrences
惕tì
0.467232 co-occurrences
飘piāo
0.456216 co-occurrences
然rán
0.4235,018 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (7)

忽高忽低hū gāo hū dīHSK 4+

alternately soaring and plunging

phrase
忽忽不乐hū hū bù lèHSK 4+

disappointed and unhappy; dispirited

phrase
忽上忽下hū shàng hū xiàHSK 4+

to fluctuate sharply

phrase
忽隐忽现hū yǐn hū xiànHSK 6+

intermittent; now you see it, now you don't

phrase
飘忽不定piāohūbùdìngHSK 6+

to be unsteady in motion; to drift from place to place; to be erratic

phrase
玩忽职守wánhū zhíshǒuHSK 5+

to neglect one's duty; to engage in misconduct in public office

phrase

Showing 6 of 7 idioms containing 忽.

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

忽然下起了大雨,我们只好躲进附近的商店。

Hūrán xià qǐ le dàyǔ, wǒmen zhǐhǎo duǒ jìn fùjìn de shāngdiàn.

It suddenly started raining heavily, so we had to take shelter in a nearby shop.

EttodayMar 2026

9岁童碰撞“眼球忽然转不动” 医揭“线性爆裂性骨折”4警讯

9 suì tóng pèng zhuàng yǎn qiú hū rán zhuǎn bù dòng yī jiē xiàn xìng bào liè xìng gǔ zhé 4 jǐng xùn

9-Year-Old Suffers Head Injury, Eyes Suddenly Unable to Move; Doctor Reveals 4 Warning Signs of "Linear Blast Fracture"

風傳媒Mar 2026

...拜!台人被迫滞留,航班全面停飞能理赔吗?忽视旅平险1关键荷包大失血

. . . bài ! tái rén bèi pò zhì liú , háng bān quán miàn tíng fēi néng lǐ péi ma ? hū shì lǚ píng xiǎn 1 guān jiàn hé bāo dà shī xiě

... Bye! Taiwanese people are forced to be stranded, can flights be completely grounded to settle claims? Ignore the travel insurance 1 key wallet loss of blood loss

Yahoo FinanceFeb 2026

...910.HK)美国双重上市估值重估潜力遭忽略 评级“买入”

. . . 9 1 0 . H K ) měi guó shuāng chóng shàng shì gū zhí chóng gū qián lì zāo hū lüè píng jí mǎi rù

... 910.HK) The potential of U.S. dual listing valuation revaluation is ignored, and the rating is "buy"

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

紐時示警 矽谷忽視的晶片災難逼近

紐 時 shì jǐng 矽 gǔ hū 視 de jīng piàn 災 難 bī jìn

The New York Times warns that Silicon Valley's neglected chip disaster is approaching

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

李家同/陸大學正在進步 不容忽視

lǐ jiā tóng 陸 dà 學 zhèng zài 進 bù bù róng hū 視

Li Jiatong/Lu University is making progress and cannot be ignored

Tatoeba

学生不该忽略自己的身份。

Xuésheng bù gāi hūlüè zìjǐ de shēnfèn.

A student should not lose sight of his own identity.

Tatoeba

我忽然想起了我死去的妈妈。

Wǒ hūrán xiǎngqǐ le wǒ sǐqù de māma.

I suddenly thought of my dead mother.

Tatoeba

忽然天气转为多云。

Hūrán tiānqì zhuǎn wèi duōyún.

All of a sudden, it became cloudy.

Tatoeba

他责备了我的疏忽。

Tā zébèi le wǒ de shūhu.

He reprimanded me for my oversight.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 心 (heart) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced hū

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 忽 (hū) mean in Chinese?
忽 (hū) primarily means "to neglect." It is classified as HSK Level 4, making it an upper-intermediate character. It ranks #912 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 忽 and 物?
忽 (hū) and 物 (wù) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 忄 vs 牛 (same 勿 component).
How many strokes does 忽 have?
忽 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 忽?
The radical associated with 忽 is 忄 (heart). This radical appears in many characters related to heart.
What are the components of 忽?
忽 is composed of: 勿 (phonetic), 心 (semantic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿱勿心 with a top-bottom layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 忽?
Common words with 忽 include: 忽略 (hū lüè, "to neglect"); 忽视 (hū shì, "to neglect"); 忽然 (hū rán, "suddenly"); 疏忽 (shū hu, "to neglect"); 忽悠 (hū you, "to rock"). There are over 35 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 忽 (hū)?
Several characters share the pronunciation hū: 乎 ((classical particle similar to 於|于) in), 护 (to protect), 呼 (to call), 胡 (non-Han people, esp. from central Asia), and 4 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 忽 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 忽 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 忽 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.