脏 (zāng): dirty

Meanings

1 dirty
2 filthy
3 to get something dirty

Characters

脏

zāng

dirty; filthy

Examples

HSK 1

你的手很脏。

Nǐ de shǒu hěn zāng.

Your hands are very dirty.

HSK 1

别说脏话。

Bié shuō zānghuà.

Don't use dirty language.

HSK 2

这件衣服太脏了，要洗了。

Zhè jiàn yīfu tài zāng le, yào xǐ le.

This piece of clothing is too dirty, it needs to be washed.

Tips

usage

Covers both physical grime (脏衣服 = dirty clothes) and figurative impurity (脏话 = profanity, 脏水 = dirty water / mudslinging).

mistakes

脏 and 脏 share one simplified glyph but two traditional forms: 髒 (dirty, zāng) vs 臟 (organ, zàng). Context picks the reading - 心脏 'heart-organ' is zàng; 脏话 'profanity' is zāng.

Components

radical

⺼ ròu

flesh; meat (left-side form)

Left flesh radical, the side-form of 肉 (flesh) - graphically identical to 月 (moon) but historically distinct. The PRC reform merged the older 'dirty' character 髒 onto this organ-radical glyph, so the flesh radical here carries no semantic load for the zāng 'dirty' reading - it is structural reuse, not a clue to meaning.

phonetic

庄 zhuāng

village; solemn

Right side supplies the sound: 庄 → zāng (cognate shift, retroflex zh- to dental z-). The simplified form borrows this organ-glyph and uses 庄 as a convenient phonetic for the dirty reading; the older 髒 used 葬 as phonetic on a bone radical.