虔 (qián): to act with reverence, reverent

虔 (qián) is a Chinese character meaning “to act with reverence.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 虍 (structural) and 文 (structural). It ranks #2654 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 虍 tiger10 strokesFrequency #2654虍 structural文 structural

Definitions

  1. to act with reverence
  2. reverent

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
虔诚qián chéngpious
虔敬qián jìngreverent
虔信主义qián xìn zhǔ yìfideism
虔信者qián xìn zhěpious believer
虔信派qián xìn pàipious sect
虔信qián xìnpiety
一秉虔诚yī bǐng qián chéngearnestly and sincerely (idiom)
敬虔jìng qiándevout
8
Total compounds
75
As first character
13
As last character
13
As middle character

虔 appears in 8 compound words: 75 as the first character, 13 as the last, and 13 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 虔 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

诚chéng
0.7029,252 co-occurrences
敬jìng
0.5042,982 co-occurrences
仰yǎng
0.4211,098 co-occurrences
信xìn
0.4154,170 co-occurrences
祈qí
0.415468 co-occurrences
僧sēng
0.410606 co-occurrences
祷dǎo
0.391132 co-occurrences
恭gōng
0.353270 co-occurrences
徒tú
0.348642 co-occurrences
奉fèng
0.336522 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

虔字虽然难写，但意思很有趣。

qián zì suī rán nán xiě , dàn yì sī hěn yǒu qù .

The character "虔" may be difficult to write, but its meaning is quite interesting.

BastillepostApr 2026

...美洲耶稣受难日巡游 信徒赤脚戴荆棘冠冕展虔诚

. . . měi zhōu yē 稣 shòu nán rì xún yóu xìn tú chì jiǎo dài jīng jí guàn 冕 zhǎn qián chéng

Tatoeba

我是一个虔诚的教徒，我相信死后的生命。

Wǒ shì yī gè qiánchéng de jiàotú, wǒ xiāngxìn sǐhòu de shēngmìng.

I'm a deeply religious man and believe in life after death.

Character Family

虍 Radical Family — Characters sharing the tiger radical

虎hǔ虏lǔ虑lǜ虐nüè虚xū

Related Characters

虑lǜ虎hǔ虚xū虏lǔ虐nüè

Homophones — Characters pronounced qián

千qiān迁qiān牵qiān铅qiān谦qiān签qiān前qián钱qián浅qiǎn欠qiàn

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 虔 (qián) mean in Chinese?
虔 (qián) primarily means "to act with reverence." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2654 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 虔 have?
虔 is written with 10 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 虔?
The radical associated with 虔 is 虍 (tiger). This radical appears in many characters related to tiger.
What are the components of 虔?
虔 is composed of: 虍 (structural), 文 (structural). Its IDS decomposition is ⿸虍文 with a surround-from-upper-left layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 虔?
Common words with 虔 include: 虔诚 (qián chéng, "pious"); 虔敬 (qián jìng, "reverent"); 虔信主义 (qián xìn zhǔ yì, "fideism"); 虔信者 (qián xìn zhě, "pious believer"); 虔信派 (qián xìn pài, "pious sect"). There are over 8 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 虔 (qián)?
Several characters share the pronunciation qián: 千 (thousand), 迁 (to move), 牵 (to lead along), 铅 (lead), and 6 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 虔 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 虔 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 虔 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear native pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

Download on theApp StoreGet it onGoogle Play

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.