kuáng
adjective/adverb HSK 5 #1,489

Meanings

  1. 1 mad; crazy; insane
  2. 2 wild; violent; unrestrained
  3. 3 wildly; frantically (as intensifier)

Examples

Wàimiàn kuángfēng dàzuò.
A wild wind is raging outside.
Tā jiǎnzhí shì ge kuángrén.
He is simply a madman.
Fěnsī men kuángrè de zhuī zhe míngxīng.
Fans fanatically chase after celebrities.
Dàjiā kuángxiào bùzhǐ.
Everyone was laughing hysterically.

Tips

usage
as an intensifier is very colloquial: (eat like crazy), 狂笑 (laugh hysterically), (buy like crazy). It's more dramatic than .
usage
疯狂 (fēngkuáng) = crazy/insane, 狂欢 (kuánghuān) = carnival/revelry, 狂热 (kuángrè) = fanatical.

Components

radical
quǎn
dog; beast (left form)
Left animal radical — side-form of (dog), used for any quadruped. The indexing radical for and the source of meaning: originally meant a rabid dog, the foaming-mouthed animal whose erratic violence gave Chinese its core word for 'mad, wild.' Same family: dog, cat, fierce, monkey.
phonetic
wáng
king (here phonetic)
Right side supplies the sound — wáng → kuáng via a w/k onset alternation seen across this phonetic series ( kuáng deceive, guàng stroll). The 'king' meaning is inert here; pure sound carrier. Together: a wild dog with the wáng-cluster sound = the prototype of madness.

Stroke Order

kuáng