夯

bèn / hāng
adjective

Meanings

  1. 1 clumsy; stupid (old variant of 笨)

Examples

HSK 7-9
小儿蠢夯,自幼失学。
Xiǎo'ér chǔn bèn, zìyòu shīxué.
The boy was dull-witted and dropped out of school early.
HSK 7-9
Jiù xiǎoshuō lǐ bèn yǒushí xiě zuò bèn, yìsi shì bènzhuō.
In old novels 夯 is sometimes written for 笨, meaning clumsy.

Tips

history
Read bèn, 夯 is an old loan-spelling for 笨 (clumsy, stupid), found mostly in Ming and Qing fiction. It is dead in modern writing; use 笨 today.

Components

semantic
大 dà
big
大 on top, over the force element below, makes up the graph. In this bèn reading the same character is borrowed for 'clumsy', unrelated to its structure.
semantic
力 lì
strength; force
力 is the strength element at the bottom. The two parts spell the same graph 夯 whose primary reading is hāng; the clumsy sense is a separate loan reading.

Stroke Order

夯 bèn