蝗 (huáng): locust

Meanings

一群蝗虫一夜之间把庄稼吃光了。

Yì qún huángchóng yíyè zhījiān bǎ zhuāngjia chī guāng le.

A swarm of locusts ate the crops clean overnight.

古代闹蝗灾往往意味着饥荒。

Gǔdài nào huángzāi wǎngwǎng yìwèizhe jīhuāng.

In ancient times, a locust plague often meant famine.

culture

蝗 is the locust, almost always in 蝗虫 (locust) or 蝗灾 (locust plague). Locust swarms were one of the great recurring disasters of agrarian China.

radical

虫 chóng

insect

The insect radical. A locust is an insect, so this radical states the category directly and groups 蝗 with 蝗's relatives like 蚂, 蜂 and 蝶.

phonetic

皇 huáng

emperor; imperial

Pure sound: standalone 皇 is huáng and 蝗 keeps it exactly. The emperor meaning does not enter the word, only the reading, paralleling 煌 and 凰.

蝗 huáng