嗡 (wēng) · (onomatopoeia) buzz, hum

Meanings

1 (onomatopoeia) buzz
2 hum
3 drone (of bees, machinery, low-frequency sound)

Characters

嗡

wēng

(onomatopoeia: hum / buzz)

Examples

HSK 4

他的耳朵嗡的一声响起来。

Tā de ěrduo wēng de yì shēng xiǎngqǐlái.

His ears suddenly started buzzing.

HSK 6

蜜蜂嗡嗡地飞着。

Mìfēng wēngwēng de fēi zhe.

The bees are buzzing as they fly.

Tips

memory

嗡 is most commonly seen reduplicated as 嗡嗡 ('bzzzz, bzzzz') - the sound of bees, mosquitoes, or a humming refrigerator. The 口 (mouth) radical marks it as a sound word; the right component 翁 supplies the wēng pronunciation. Easy to remember by saying it: 'wēng' actually sounds like a hum.

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth

Mouth radical on the left - pictograph of an open mouth. Indexes 嗡 in the sound-making family with 唱 sing, 喊 shout. Marks the character as a noise - most 口-radical characters with non-mouth meanings turn out to be onomatopoeia, and 嗡 is a classic example.

phonetic

翁 wēng

old man

Right side 翁 supplies the sound wēng directly, no drift. Chosen purely for the buzzing nasal hum of the syllable: a bee or fluorescent tube sounds like an old man muttering. Same phonetic in 蓊 luxuriant; the "elder" meaning of 翁 plays no semantic role here.