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衡

héng
verb/noun #45,627

Meanings

  1. 1 to weigh; to measure
  2. 2 balance; equilibrium

Examples

要保持工作和生活的平衡。
Yào bǎochí gōngzuò hé shēnghuó de pínghéng.
You need to maintain a work-life balance.
我们要权衡利弊。
Wǒmen yào quánhéng lìbì.
We need to weigh the pros and cons.

Tips

usage
平衡 (balance), 权衡 (to weigh/consider), 衡量 (to measure/assess).

Components

radical
行 xíng
walk; row; act
Outer 行 wraps the whole character — three strokes of the step radical 彳 on the left and three strokes of its mirror 亍 on the right, the original picture of a crossroads. Indexes 衡 in the motion family; its halves frame the middle, giving balance achieved while moving.
semantic
角 jiǎo
horn; angle
Upper-middle 角 — pictograph of an animal horn. Originally 衡 named the crossbar fixed to an ox’s horns to stop it goring, and this horn supplies the literal meaning. From "horn-bar" the sense generalised to "any balancing crossbeam," and from there to weighing and equilibrium.
semantic
大 dà
big; large
Lower-middle 大 — pictograph of a person with arms outstretched. Beneath the horn it depicts a figure spreading their arms to keep a balance bar level, the gesture of weighing. Together with 角 above and the moving 行 around, the whole is a tightrope picture of balance.

Stroke Order

衡 héng