háng
verb

Meanings

  1. 1 (classical) to fly downward
  2. 2 (classical) the throat; neck

Examples

Yàn yàn yú fēi, xié zhī háng zhī.
The swallows in flight, soaring up and swooping down.

Tips

history
is not used independently in modern Chinese. It survives only in the literary pair (xiéháng), birds soaring up and swooping down, from the 诗经. An older sense was the throat.
register
Literary; appears in classical poetry and the fixed phrase, not in speech.

Components

radical
head; page
is the head radical (originally a drawing of a head), connecting the character to the throat and neck sense.
phonetic
kàng
high; the throat
supplies the sound, with the reading drifting from to ; itself can mean the throat, matching the older neck sense.

Stroke Order

háng