(huǎn): slow, delay

(huǎn) is a Chinese character meaning “slow, delay.” Classified as HSK Level 5 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (semantic) and (phonetic). It ranks #1110 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, thread. Its radical form (silk) appears in many related characters such as (, to connect), (lěi, to accumulate), (shào, to continue).

Native pronunciation

Definitions

  1. slow, delay

Etymology & Origin

pictophoneticthread

Decomposition: ⿰纟爰 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

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

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
verbhuǎn jiěto bring relief5
adjectivehuǎn mànslow5

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
huǎn xíngsuspended sentence
huǎn huǎnslowly
huǎn héto ease (tension)
jiǎn huǎnto slow down
shū huǎnto ease (tension)
yán huǎnto defer
chí huǎnslow
huǎn chōngbuffer
zàn huǎnto postpone
qīng zhòng huǎn jíslight or important, urgent or non-urgent (idiom)
huǎn chōng qìbuffer (computing)
huǎn cún(computing) cache
huǎn qīto defer
kè bù róng huǎnto brook no delay
fàng huǎnto slow
54
Total compounds
46
As first character
44
As last character
9
As middle character

appears in 54 compound words: 46 as the first character, 44 as the last, and 9 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.

màn
0.68428,320 co-occurrences
qiáo
0.63221 co-occurrences
chōng
0.59614,844 co-occurrences
zàn
0.5216,197 co-occurrences
chí
0.5122,802 co-occurrences
jiě
0.50523,334 co-occurrences
jiǎn
0.4995,538 co-occurrences
zhàn
0.47621 co-occurrences
xíng
0.4747,642 co-occurrences
cún
0.47114,046 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (6)

huǎnbīngzhījìHSK 6+

stalling tactic

phrase
huǎnbùjìjíHSK 5+

to be too slow and unable to address an urgent situation

phrase
huǎn jí xiāng jìHSK 5+

to help one another in difficulty; mutual assistance in extremity

phrase
kèbùrónghuǎnHSK 5+

to not tolerate any further delay; to be very urgent

phrase
qīngzhònghuǎnjíHSK 5+

relative importance and urgency (of matters)

phrase

Showing 5 of 6 idioms containing .

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

由于天气原因,航班延误了三个小时。

Yóuyú tiānqì yuányīn, hángbān yánwù le sān gè xiǎoshí.

Due to weather conditions, the flight was delayed by three hours.

中時新聞網Feb 2026

国3龙井段惊魂!驾驶分心追撞撞车 车流回堵2公里

guó 3 lóng jǐng duàn jīng hún ! jià shǐ fēn xīn zhuī zhuàng huǎn zhuàng chē chē liú huí dǔ 2 gōng lǐ

National 3 Longjing section is horror! The driver was distracted and slowed down the collision, and the traffic flow was blocked for 2 kilometers

Nownews今日新聞Feb 2026

快讯/国3龙井段惊险车祸!宾士男猛撞撞车 “车头全烂”酿1伤

kuài xùn guó 3 lóng jǐng duàn jīng xiǎn chē huò ! bīn shì nán měng zhuàng huǎn zhuàng chē chē tóu quán làn niàng 1 shāng

News/National 3 Longjing section thrilling car accident! The Mercedes-Benz man slammed into the car and crashed slowly, and the front of the car was completely rotten, causing 1 injury

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

桃园人妻晨间泼酸毁夫双眼 获刑理由曝光

táo yuán rén qī chén jiān pō suān huǐ fū shuāng yǎn huò huǎn xíng lǐ yóu pù guāng

Taoyuan wife splashed acid in the morning and destroyed her husband's eyes, and the reason for the suspended sentence was exposed

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

彭博示警 冲期过后祭301永久措施

彭 bó shì jǐng huǎn chōng qī guò hòu jì 3 0 1 yǒng jiǔ cuò shī

Bloomberg warns of permanent measures to sacrifice 301 after the buffer period

百度新闻Feb 2026

...军注意!雅西高速成都往西昌方向多路段车多..

. . . jūn zhù yì ! yǎ xī gāo sù chéng dū wǎng xī chāng fāng xiàng duō lù duàn chē duō huǎn . .

... Army attention! Yaxi Expressway, Chengdu to Xichang direction of many sections of traffic slow ...

Tatoeba

牛群在郁郁葱葱的草地上移动着。

Niúqún zài yùyù-cōngcōng de cǎodì shàng huǎnhuǎn yídòng zhe.

The cows were moving very slowly through the long green grass.

Tatoeba

消失在雾气弥漫的森林中。

Tā huǎnhuǎn xiāoshī zài wùqì mímàn de sēnlín zhōng.

She slowly disappeared into the foggy forest.

Tatoeba

在大博弈期间,阿富汗是一个冲国。

Zài dà bóyì qījiān, āfùhàn shì yī gè huǎnchōng guó.

During the Great Game, Afghanistan was a buffer state.

Tatoeba

这艘船逆风而行慢前进。

Zhè sōu chuán nìfēng ér xíng huǎnmàn qiánjìn.

The ship made slow progress against the strong wind.

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced huǎn

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 缓 (huǎn) mean in Chinese?
缓 (huǎn) primarily means "slow, delay." It is classified as HSK Level 5, making it an advanced character. It ranks #1110 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 缓 and 快?
缓 (huǎn) and 快 (kuài) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 缓 (slow) vs 快 (fast).
How many strokes does 缓 have?
缓 is written with 12 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 缓?
The radical associated with 缓 is 纟 (silk). This radical appears in many characters related to silk.
What are the components of 缓?
缓 is composed of: 纟 (semantic), 爰 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰纟爰 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 缓?
Common words with 缓 include: 缓解 (huǎn jiě, "to bring relief"); 缓慢 (huǎn màn, "slow"); 缓刑 (huǎn xíng, "suspended sentence"); 缓缓 (huǎn huǎn, "slowly"); 缓和 (huǎn hé, "to ease (tension)"). There are over 54 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 缓 (huǎn)?
Several characters share the pronunciation huǎn: 欢 (hubbub), 环 (ring), 幻 (fantasy), 唤 (to call), and 4 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 缓 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
No. The simplified form is 缓 and the traditional form is 緩.

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.