魂

hún
noun #5,704

Meanings

  1. 1 soul
  2. 2 spirit

Examples

HSK 6
Tā xià de hún dōu fēi le.
He was so scared his soul flew away.
HSK 7-9
Yīnyuè shì zhè bù diànyǐng de línghún.
Music is the soul of this film.

Tips

usage
魂 often appears in set phrases: 灵魂 (soul), 魂飞魄散 (scared out of one's wits), 失魂落魄 (in a daze).

Components

radical
鬼 guǐ
ghost; spirit
Right 鬼 - the indexing radical, the ghost-spirit picture itself. 鬼 originally drew a person with a frightening mask, the spirit-of-the-dead. As radical it anchors the supernatural family: 魄 (corporeal soul), 魅 (charm/specter), 魁 (chief). 魂 is the cloud-soul, the lighter ethereal half, paired in classical thought with 魄 the body-bound soul.
phonetic
云 yún
cloud
Left 云 supplies the sound (yún → hún, y/h velar drift) and a fitting semantic flavor - souls were imagined as cloudlike, drifting and intangible. The character 魂 captures that ethereal floating-spirit image directly: a cloud + a ghost. Phonetic family: 运 (transport), 雲 (cloud, traditional).

Stroke Order

魂 hún