红颜 (hóngyán): beautiful woman

Meanings

1 beautiful woman
2 beauty (literary)
3 rosy cheeks (of youth)

Characters

红

face; complexion; color

Examples

自古红颜多薄命，令人叹息。

Zìgǔ hóngyán duō bó mìng, lìng rén tànxī.

Since ancient times, beautiful women have often had ill-fated lives — a cause for lament.

他终于找到了一位红颜知己。

Tā zhōngyú zhǎodào le yī wèi hóngyán zhījǐ.

He finally found a female confidante who truly understood him.

Tips

culture

红颜 is a literary term for a beautiful woman, derived from 红 (red) + 颜 (face/complexion) — the rosy complexion of a young, beautiful woman. It appears in the famous phrase 红颜祸水 (hóngyán huòshuǐ — 'beauty brings disaster'), a traditional misogynistic trope blaming beautiful women for political downfall, as with Yang Guifei and the fall of the Tang dynasty.