孟 (mèng): first month of a season, eldest amongst brothers

孟 (mèng) is a Chinese character meaning “first month of a season.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 子 (structural) and 皿 (structural). It ranks #1565 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 孟 a child 子 sitting on a throne 皿. Its radical form 子 (child) appears in many related characters such as 子 (zǐ, son), 字 (zì, letter), 学 (xué, to learn).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. first month of a season
  2. eldest amongst brothers

Etymology & Origin

孟

ideographicA child 子 sitting on a throne 皿

Decomposition: ⿱子皿 (layout: top-bottom)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
孟菲斯proper-nounmèng fēi sīMemphis (Egypt or Tennessee)
孟买proper-nounmèng mǎiMumbai (formerly Bombay)
孟加拉proper-nounmèng jiā lāBengal
孟加拉国proper-nounmèng jiā lā guóBangladesh
孟加拉湾proper-nounmèng jiā lā wānBay of Bengal
孟子proper-nounmèng zǐMencius (c. 372-c. 289 BC), Confucian philosopher second only to Confucius
孟加拉人民共和国proper-nounmèng jiā lā rén mín gòng hé guóPeople's Republic of Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan)
孟加拉语nounmèng jiā lā yǔBengali (language)
孟村回族自治县proper-nounmèng cūn huí zú zì zhì xiànMengcun Hui Autonomous County, in Cangzhou City 滄州市|沧州市, Hebei
西孟加拉邦xī mèng jiā lā bāngWest Bengal
孔孟之道nounkǒng mèng zhī dàothe teaching of Confucius and Mencius
王希孟wáng xī mèngWang Ximeng (c. 1096-c. 1119), Song artist, probably teenage prodigy who died young, painter of Thousand Miles of Lan...
孟州市mèng zhōu shìMengzhou, a county-level city in Jiaozuo City 焦作市, Henan
农德孟nóng dé mèngNong Duc Manh (1940-), general secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party 2001-2011
孟连傣族拉祜族佤族自治县mèng lián dǎi zú lā hù zú wǎ zú zì zhì xiànMenglian Dai, Lahu and Va Autonomous County, in Pu'er City 普洱市, Yunnan
40
Total compounds
80
As first character
13
As last character
8
As middle character

孟 appears in 40 compound words: 80 as the first character, 13 as the last, and 8 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 孟 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

买mǎi
0.4882,106 co-occurrences
加jiā
0.45616,208 co-occurrences
拉lā
0.45416,146 co-occurrences
楷kǎi
0.429173 co-occurrences
耿gěng
0.427129 co-occurrences
龄líng
0.418796 co-occurrences
祥xiáng
0.4151,394 co-occurrences
舟zhōu
0.405662 co-occurrences
养yǎng
0.382944 co-occurrences
澜lán
0.378160 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (4)

孔孟之道Kǒng-Mèng zhī dàoHSK 7+

the doctrines of Confucius and Mencius; Confucianism

noun
孟加拉国MèngjiālāguóHSK 7+

Bangladesh (a country in South Asia)

孟加拉湾Mèngjiālā WānHSK 7+

Bay of Bengal

孟德斯鸠MèngdésījiūHSK 7+

Montesquieu

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

学习孟字需要反复练习,才能写得工整。

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

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

EttodayMar 2026

被指“艳压杨紫”引战?孟子义私讯道歉 女神“16字暖心回应”曝光

bèi zhǐ yàn yā yáng zǐ yǐn zhàn ? mèng zǐ yì sī xùn dào qiàn nǚ shén 1 6 zì nuǎn xīn huí yīng pù guāng

Accused of "outshining Yang Zi" and sparking controversy? Meng Ziyi sends private message to apologize; goddess's "16-word heartwarming reply" revealed

Orientaldaily MyMar 2026

诱骗同乡偷渡来马劳动剥削 移民局捕4孟加拉男

yòu piàn tóng xiāng tōu dù lái mǎ láo dòng bāo xiāo yí mín jú bǔ 4 mèng jiā lā nán

Deceiving fellow villagers to smuggle into Malaysia for labor exploitation, the immigration bureau arrested 4 Bangladeshi men

LtnFeb 2026

离婚黄子佼半年!孟耿如近况曝光 周丹薇泄私下互动

lí hūn huáng zǐ 佼 bàn nián ! mèng gěng rú jìn kuàng pù guāng zhōu dān 薇 xiè sī xià hù dòng

Divorced Huang Zijiao for half a year! Meng Gengru's recent situation was exposed, and Zhou Danwei leaked private interactions

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

爆潘孟安免费住豪宅供养王鸿薇要赔50万 最高法...

bào pān mèng ān miǎn fèi zhù háo zhái gōng yǎng wáng 鸿 薇 yāo péi 5 0 wàn zuì gāo fǎ . . .

Pan Meng'an lives in a mansion for free to support Wang Hongwei to pay 500,000 yuan to the Supreme Court...

三立新聞網Feb 2026

蓝白要质询总统!潘孟安最速件函文立院

lán bái yāo zhì xún zǒng tǒng ! pān mèng ān zuì sù jiàn hán wén lì yuàn

Blue and white want to question the president! Pan Meng'an's fastest letter to the Legislative Yuan

Tatoeba

达卡是孟加拉的首都。

Dákǎ shì Mèngjiālā de shǒudū.

Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh.

Tatoeba

这艘船的目的地是孟买

Zhè sōu chuán de mùdìdì shì Mèngmǎi

The ship set sail for Bombay.

Tatoeba

你的智慧广大的有如孟买和孟买之间的距离。

Nǐ de zhìhuì guǎngdà de yǒurú Mèngmǎi hé Mèngmǎi zhījiān de jùlí.

Your intelligence is as vast as the distance between Bombay and Mumbai.

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced mèng

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 孟 (mèng) mean in Chinese?
孟 (mèng) primarily means "first month of a season." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #1565 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 孟 have?
孟 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 孟?
The radical associated with 孟 is 子 (child). This radical appears in many characters related to child.
What are the components of 孟?
孟 is composed of: 子 (structural), 皿 (structural). Its IDS decomposition is ⿱子皿 with a top-bottom layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 孟?
Common words with 孟 include: 孟菲斯 (mèng fēi sī, "Memphis (Egypt or Tennessee)"); 孟买 (mèng mǎi, "Mumbai (formerly Bombay)"); 孟加拉 (mèng jiā lā, "Bengal"); 孟加拉国 (mèng jiā lā guó, "Bangladesh"); 孟加拉湾 (mèng jiā lā wān, "Bay of Bengal"). There are over 40 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 孟 (mèng)?
Several characters share the pronunciation mèng: 梦 (dream), 蒙 (to cover, Mongolia), 猛 (ferocious), 盟 (oath), and 2 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 孟 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 孟 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 孟 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.