凝 (níng): to congeal, to concentrate attention, to stare

凝 (níng) is a Chinese character meaning “to congeal.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 冫 (semantic) and 疑 (phonetic). It ranks #1620 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 凝 ice. Its radical form 冫 (ice) appears in many related characters such as 冷 (lěng, cold), 净 (jìng, clean), 准 (zhǔn, to allow).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. to congeal
  2. to concentrate attention
  3. to stare

Etymology & Origin

凝

pictophoneticice

Decomposition: ⿰冫疑 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
混凝土nounhùn níng tǔconcrete (building material)
凝视verbníng shìto gaze at
凝固verbníng gùto freeze
凝聚verbníng jùto condense
凝结verbníng jiéto condense
凝望verbníng wàngto gaze at
凝聚力nounníng jù lìcohesion
凝重adjectiveníng zhòngdignified
凝神verbníng shénwith rapt attention
凝集verbníng jíto concentrate
凝血酶nounníng xuè méithrombin (biochemistry)
凝滞verbníng zhìto stagnate
男性凝视nounnán xìng níng shìmale gaze
外源凝集素wài yuán níng jí sù(biochemistry) lectin
凝固点nounníng gù diǎnfreezing point
46
Total compounds
67
As first character
7
As last character
26
As middle character

凝 appears in 46 compound words: 67 as the first character, 7 as the last, and 26 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 凝 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

筋jīn
0.6934,652 co-occurrences
混hùn
0.63219,381 co-occurrences
钢gāng
0.5763,310 co-occurrences
聚jù
0.5678,190 co-occurrences
土tǔ
0.55719,233 co-occurrences
浇jiāo
0.543450 co-occurrences
固gù
0.4922,950 co-occurrences
血xiě
0.4733,162 co-occurrences
胶jiāo
0.4701,271 co-occurrences
冷lěng
0.4551,722 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

抗凝血剂kàng níng xuè jìHSK 7+

anticoagulant

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

我在字典里查到了凝字的详细解释。

wǒ zài zì diǎn lǐ chá dào le níng zì de xiáng xì xiè shì .

I looked up the detailed explanation of the character "凝" in the dictionary.

東方日報Mar 2026

【单T过关】梓忠:凝妙星拚个明白

dān T guò guān 梓 zhōng : níng miào xīng 拚 gè míng bái

[Single-Match Victory] Zi Zhong: Ning Miaoxing Gives It Their All

中国新闻网_梳理天下新闻Mar 2026

...国两会)无党派人士孙其信:为中国式现代化凝聚智慧、贡献力量

. . . guó liǎng huì ) wú dǎng pài rén shì sūn qí xìn : wéi zhōng guó shì xiàn dài huà níng jù zhì huì , gòng xiàn lì liàng

... National People's Congress) Sun Qixin, a non-party person: Gather wisdom and contribute to Chinese-style modernization

It之家Mar 2026

...玻璃陶瓷 3 发布:超 2 米高度跌落混凝土表面,仍完好无损

. . . bō lí táo cí 3 fā bù : chāo 2 mǐ gāo dù diē luò hùn níng tǔ biǎo miàn , réng wán hǎo wú sǔn

...Glass-Ceramic 3: Dropped from a height of over 2 meters onto a concrete surface and remained intact

大紀元 | 大紀元新聞網Mar 2026

行销总监观神韵 感受凝聚人心的力量

háng xiāo zǒng jiān guàn shén yùn gǎn shòu níng jù rén xīn de lì liàng

The marketing director looks at Shen Yun and feels the power of uniting people's hearts

Investing 香港Feb 2026

Palvella报告淋巴管畸形凝胶第三期试验结果呈阳性

P a l v e l l a bào gào lín bā guǎn jī xíng níng jiāo dì sān qī shì yàn jié guǒ chéng yáng xìng

Palvela reported positive results from the phase III trial of lymphangiomalformations gel

Tatoeba

女孩凝视着洋娃娃。

Nǚhái níngshì zhe yángwáwa.

The girl was gazing at the doll.

Tatoeba

水泥会在数个小时内凝固。

Shuǐní huì zài shù gè xiǎoshí nèi nínggù.

The cement will set in a couple of hours.

Tatoeba

没有什么比在夜晚凝望天空更美好了。

Méiyǒushénme bǐ zài yèwǎn níngwàng tiānkōng gèng měihǎo le.

Nothing is better than staring at the night sky.

Tatoeba

他站在窗外凝望着我。

Tā zhàn zài chuāng wài níngwàng zhe wǒ.

He stood outside the window staring at me.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 冫 (ice) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced níng

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 凝 (níng) mean in Chinese?
凝 (níng) primarily means "to congeal." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #1620 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 凝 have?
凝 is written with 16 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 凝?
The radical associated with 凝 is 冫 (ice). This radical appears in many characters related to ice.
What are the components of 凝?
凝 is composed of: 冫 (semantic), 疑 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰冫疑 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 凝?
Common words with 凝 include: 混凝土 (hùn níng tǔ, "concrete (building material)"); 凝视 (níng shì, "to gaze at"); 凝固 (níng gù, "to freeze"); 凝聚 (níng jù, "to condense"); 凝结 (níng jié, "to condense"). There are over 46 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 凝 (níng)?
Several characters share the pronunciation níng: 宁 (peaceful), 拧 (to pinch). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 凝 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 凝 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 凝 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.