喑

yīn
verb

Meanings

  1. 1 mute; unable to speak
  2. 2 silent; not making a sound

Examples

HSK 7-9
万马齐喑究可哀。
Wànmǎ qí yīn jiū kě āi.
Ten thousand horses standing mute is, after all, a thing to grieve.

Tips

history
喑 is not used independently in modern Chinese. It survives in the idiom 万马齐喑 (a deathly, oppressive silence, literally 'ten thousand horses all mute'). The phonetic is 音.
register
Archaic and literary only, alive mainly inside that one idiom, not in everyday speech.

Components

radical
口 kǒu
mouth
The mouth radical 口 fits the meaning: being 喑 is a failure of the mouth to make sound, being mute.
phonetic
音 yīn
sound; tone
音 supplies the sound yīn and adds an ironic touch: the 'sound' element sits inside the word for having no voice.

Stroke Order

喑 yīn