hún
noun HSK 7-9 #5,704

Meanings

  1. 1 soul
  2. 2 spirit

Examples

HSK 5
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
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
guǐ
ghost; spirit
Right - the indexing radical, the ghost-spirit picture itself. originally drew a person with a frightening mask, the spirit-of-the-dead. As radical it anchors the supernatural family: (corporeal soul), (charm/specter), (chief). is the cloud-soul, the lighter ethereal half, paired in classical thought with the body-bound soul.
phonetic
yún
cloud
Left supplies the sound (yún → hún, y/h velar drift) and a fitting semantic flavor - souls were imagined as cloudlike, drifting and intangible. The character captures that ethereal floating-spirit image directly: a cloud + a ghost. Phonetic family: (transport), (cloud, traditional).

Stroke Order

hún