hēng
adjective #16,507

Meanings

  1. 1 prosperous
  2. 2 smooth
  3. 3 henry (unit of inductance)

Examples

Wànshì hēng tōng.
Everything goes smoothly.
Hēnglì shì diàn gǎn de dānwèi.
Henry is the unit of inductance.

Tips

usage
Most commonly seen in the idiom 万事 (everything goes smoothly) and as part of transliterated names like 亨利 (Henry).

Components

radical
tóu
lid; roof-cap
The cap on top is the indexing Kangxi radical for . Originally depicted an ancestral altar or temple with offering inside; the roof-line of the temple survives as the cap that anchors the graph for traditional dictionary lookup.
semantic
kǒu
mouth; opening
The in the middle represents the chamber of the ancestral altar where offerings were placed. It pictures the enclosed sacred space, contributing to 's meaning of smooth ritual flow that extends to 'prosperous, going well' in .
semantic
le
completion; child-shape stand
The -shaped bottom is a stylization of the altar's pedestal or supporting base. It grounds the altar-chamber-roof stack and completes the temple silhouette; semantically it reinforces the sense of ritual completion that underlies 's 'going through smoothly' meaning.

Stroke Order

hēng