髯 (rán): beard, whiskers

髯 (rán) is a Chinese character meaning “beard.” Outside the HSK 3.0 syllabus (CLEC 2022), it is composed of 髟 (semantic) and 冉 (phonetic). It ranks #4925 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 髯 hair. Its radical form 髟 (hair) appears in many related characters such as 髦 (máo, bang (hair)), 鬓 (bìn, temples).

Spoken pronunciation
Radical: 髟 hair15 strokesFrequency #4925髟 semantic冉 phonetic

Definitions

  1. beard
  2. whiskers

Etymology & Origin

髯

pictophonetichair

Decomposition: ⿱髟冉 (layout: top-bottom)

Components:髟semantic冉phonetic

Stroke Order

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

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
髯口rán kouartificial beard worn by Chinese opera actors
髯须rán xūbeard
2
Total compounds
100
As first character
0
As last character
0
As middle character

髯 appears in 2 compound words: 100 as the first character, 0 as the last, and 0 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Example Sentences

中国新闻网·文化Apr 2026

髯口轻垂，越音千年——访越剧表演艺术家茅威涛

rán kǒu qīng chuí , yuè yīn qiān nián — — fǎng yuè jù biǎo yǎn yì shù jiā máo wēi tāo

A Slightly Drooping Moustache, a Thousand Years of Yue Opera—An Interview with Yue Opera Performer Mao Weitao

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 髟 (hair) component

鬓bìn髦máo

Related Characters

髦máo鬓bìn

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 髯 (rán) mean in Chinese?
髯 (rán) primarily means "beard." It is not part of the HSK 3.0 syllabus. It ranks #4925 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 髯 have?
髯 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 髯?
The radical associated with 髯 is 髟 (hair). This radical appears in many characters related to hair.
What are the components of 髯?
髯 is composed of: 髟 (semantic), 冉 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿱髟冉 with a top-bottom layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 髯?
Common words with 髯 include: 髯口 (rán kou, "artificial beard worn by Chinese opera actors"); 髯须 (rán xū, "beard"). There are over 2 compound words containing this character.
Is 髯 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
No. The simplified form is 髯 and the traditional form is 髥.

Practice writing 髯 with real-time feedback

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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.