(): butterfly (in 蝴蝶)

() is a Chinese character meaning “butterfly (in 蝴蝶).” Classified as HSK Level 5 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (semantic) and (phonetic). It ranks #2735 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, insect. Its radical form (insect) appears in many related characters such as (chóng, insect), (dié, butterfly (in 蝴蝶)), (fēng, bee).

Native pronunciation

Definitions

  1. butterfly (in 蝴蝶)

Etymology & Origin

pictophoneticinsect

Decomposition: ⿰虫胡 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
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15

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

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
nounhú diébutterfly5

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
hú dié jiébow
hú dié lǐng jiébow tie
hú dié xiào yìngbutterfly effect (dynamical systems theory)
hú dié huāiris
yuān yang hú dié pàiMandarin ducks and butterfly (i.e. love birds) literary school around 1900, criticized as populist and romantic by so...
yuān yang hú diéMandarin ducks and butterfly (i.e. love birds)
hú dié qínsame as yangqin 揚琴|扬琴, dulcimer
hú dié jiǎohinge
hú dié quǎnpapillon (lapdog with butterfly-like ears)
hú dié sūcrispy short-crust pastry
11
Total compounds
82
As first character
0
As last character
18
As middle character

appears in 11 compound words: 82 as the first character, 0 as the last, and 18 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 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

dié
0.87446,994 co-occurrences
0.449204 co-occurrences
chì
0.434684 co-occurrences
bǎng
0.419360 co-occurrences
0.3991,674 co-occurrences
huā
0.3832,758 co-occurrences
quǎn
0.366420 co-occurrences
mèng
0.365372 co-occurrences
juàn
0.34972 co-occurrences
jiě
0.346642 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

yuānyānghúdiéHSK 5+

mandarin ducks and butterflies (i.e. love birds); Used in reference to populist and romantic writing around 1900

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

春天到了,花园里到处都飞舞着五颜六色的蝶。

Chūntiān dào le, huāyuán lǐ dàochù dōu fēiwǔ zhe wǔyánliùsè de húdié.

Spring has arrived, and colorful butterflies are dancing everywhere in the garden.

UdnnewsindexApr 2026

...蒋万安儿童节前祭育儿大礼 又要掀起全国“蝶效应”?

. . . Jiǎng wàn ān ér tóng jié qián jì yù ér dà lǐ yòu yāo xiān qǐ quán guó hú dié xiào yīng ?

It之家Mar 2026

神农开物:“太空蝶”破蛹展翅,我国太空生物试验取得新进展

shén nóng kāi wù : tài kōng hú dié pò 蛹 zhǎn chì , wǒ guó tài kōng shēng wù shì yàn qǔ dé xīn jìn zhǎn

Shennong Kaiwu: "Space butterfly" broke the chrysalis and spread its wings, and new progress was made in China's space biological experiments

百度新闻Feb 2026

3000株蝶兰凑在一起干什么?世界花卉大观园新春....

zhū 蝴 蝶 lán còu zài yī qǐ gān shén má ? shì jiè huā huì dà guàn yuán xīn chūn . . . .

What are 3,000 Phalaenopsis orchids doing together? World Flower Spectacular New Year ....

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 蝴 (hú) mean in Chinese?
蝴 (hú) primarily means "butterfly (in 蝴蝶)." It is classified as HSK Level 5, making it an advanced character. It ranks #2735 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 蝴 have?
蝴 is written with 15 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 蝴?
The radical associated with 蝴 is 虫 (insect). This radical appears in many characters related to insect.
What are the components of 蝴?
蝴 is composed of: 虫 (semantic), 胡 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰虫胡 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 蝴?
Common words with 蝴 include: 蝴蝶 (hú dié, "butterfly"); 蝴蝶结 (hú dié jié, "bow"); 蝴蝶领结 (hú dié lǐng jié, "bow tie"); 蝴蝶效应 (hú dié xiào yìng, "butterfly effect (dynamical systems theory)"); 蝴蝶花 (hú dié huā, "iris"). There are over 11 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 蝴 (hú)?
Several characters share the pronunciation hú: 湖 (lake), 糊 (to paste), 胡 (non-Han people, esp. from central Asia), 壶 (pot). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 蝴 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 蝴 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear native 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.