硬 (yìng) · hard; stiff; solid

Meanings

1 hard; stiff; solid
2 strong; firm; tough
3 stubbornly; by force; insistently

Characters

硬

yìng

hard; stiff; firm

Examples

HSK 1

这块面包太硬了。

Zhèkuài miànbāo tài yìng le.

This bread is too hard.

HSK 4

他的态度很硬。

Tā de tàidù hěn yìng.

His attitude is very firm/tough.

HSK 5

他硬说自己没错。

Tā yìng shuō zìjǐ méicuò.

He stubbornly insists he did nothing wrong.

Tips

usage

硬 as an adverb means 'stubbornly/by force': 硬要 (insist on), 硬说 (insist on saying), 硬撑 (force oneself to endure). Very common in spoken Chinese.

usage

Opposite: 软 (ruǎn, soft). 硬 vs 软 appears in many pairs: 硬件/软件 (hardware/software), 硬座/软座 (hard seat/soft seat on trains).

Components

radical

石 shí

stone

Left stone radical - the indexing component. Stones are the prototype of hardness. The radical anchors 硬 in the family of texture and material characters: 碎 (smash), 砖 (brick), 砸 (squash), 碰 (bump), 磁 (magnetic).

phonetic

更 gèng

more; further

Right 更 supplies the sound, with significant initial drift from g- to y- - predictable in this phonetic series since both initials traced to a velar/palatal in Old Chinese. Same phonetic in 梗 (gěng, stem) and faintly in 便 (biàn, convenient). The "further/more" meaning has no role here.