荤 (hūn) · meat-based; non-vegetarian

Meanings

1 meat-based; non-vegetarian
2 pungent (of certain vegetables)
3 bawdy; obscene (of jokes)

Characters

荤

hūn

meat; non-vegetarian; pungent; bawdy

Examples

HSK 4

他喜欢讲荤笑话。

Tā xǐhuan jiǎng hūn xiàohua.

He likes to tell dirty jokes.

HSK 7-9

我不吃荤，只吃素。

Wǒ bù chī hūn, zhǐ chīsù.

I don't eat meat, only vegetables.

HSK 7-9

这道菜是荤的，素食者不能吃。

Zhè dào cài shì hūn de, sùshízhě bùnéng chī.

This dish is non-vegetarian, so vegetarians can't eat it.

Tips

usage

荤 contrasts with 素 (vegetarian; plain). The pair 荤素 means 'meat and vegetables'. In Buddhist contexts 荤 also covers pungent plants like garlic and onion, the 五荤 forbidden to monks.

register

Everyday reading is hūn (meat; pungent; bawdy). A separate reading xūn appears only in the old proper name 荤粥, an early name for the Xiongnu-related northern peoples in classical histories. You will not meet the xūn reading in ordinary modern Chinese.

memory

Think of 荤 as 'heavy' food, the kind monks avoid. Its three senses (meat, pungent veg, bawdy) all share a feeling of something strong or forbidden.

Components

radical

艹 cǎo

grass; vegetation

Top grass radical, a surprise on a word that means meat dish. The original sense was strong-smelling plants like onion, garlic and leek (the 五荤 forbidden to Buddhist monks); the 'meat' sense came later by extension. The 艹 still flags that original pungent-vegetable origin.

phonetic

军 jūn

army; military

军 supplies the sound: the initial drifted from j- to h- through an old velar alternation, the rime kept. The same phonetic also drives 浑 (turbid) and 晖 (sunshine). No semantic load: the army imagery does not feed into the meaning of 荤.