隐 (yǐn) · hidden, secret, to conceal

Meanings

1 hidden
2 secret
3 to conceal

Characters

隐

yǐn

hidden; secret

Examples

HSK 5

他对朋友隐藏了真实身份。

Tā duì péngyou yǐncáng le zhēnshí shēnfèn.

He hides his true identity from his friends.

HSK 5

请尊重我的隐私。

Qǐng zūnzhòng wǒ de yǐnsī.

Please respect my privacy.

HSK 5

我隐约听到远处有人唱歌。

Wǒ yǐnyuē tīngdào yuǎnchù yǒurén chànggē.

I can faintly hear someone singing in the distance.

Tips

memory

阝 (hill) + the right-side phonetic - picture hiding behind a hill. Appears in many compounds: 隐藏 (to hide), 隐私 (privacy), 隐约 (faintly).

Components

radical

阝 fù

mound; hill (left-side form of 阜)

Left-side 阝 is the mound radical (from 阜) - distinct from the right-side city-阝. It marks features of high ground: things behind hills, things obscured by terrain. 隐 means hidden, and that hiddenness is anchored by the blocking hill. Family: 阴 shaded, 险 slope, 障 obstacle.

phonetic

急 jí

urgent

急 supplies the sound - jí drifting to yǐn, a wide phonetic shift reflecting older Chinese readings of this graph. The picture of an anxious heart 心 underneath has no clear semantic role here; the borrowing is purely for sound, matching the original full form 隱.