昏 (hūn) · dizzy; muddled; confused

Meanings

1 dizzy; muddled; confused
2 to faint; to lose consciousness
3 dusk; twilight; dim

Characters

昏

hūn

dusk; dim; confused; faint

日 (sun) sinking below 氏 - dusk, dimness.

Examples

HSK 4

她激动得差点昏过去。

Tā jīdòng de chàdiǎn hūnguòqù.

She was so excited she nearly fainted.

HSK 5

他头昏眼花。

Tā tóuhūn-yǎnhuā.

He's dizzy and seeing stars.

HSK 7-9

天色已经昏暗了。

Tiānsè yǐjīng hūn'àn le.

The sky has already grown dim.

Tips

usage

昏 appears in many compounds: 昏迷 (coma), 昏暗 (dim/gloomy), 昏倒 (to faint), 黄昏 (dusk). The character combines 日 (sun) and 氏 - the sun going down, growing dim.

memory

The sun (日) at the bottom is sinking - things grow dim, your vision blurs, you feel dizzy.

Components

radical

日 rì

sun; day

Bottom 日 (sun) - the indexing radical. The position is critical: with 氐 above and 日 below, the picture is the sun ducking beneath the horizon - twilight, dusk. From the literal sense came the metaphorical 'dim, faint, dazed, unconscious': 头昏 (dizzy), 昏迷 (in a coma), 黄昏 (twilight).

semantic

氏 shì

clan; surname (here graphic)

Top 氐/氏 - historically the graph 氐 (dǐ, 'low, base') with the bottom dot dropped: a stylised picture of something descending. Compound ideograph: the sun (below) is sinking down to the horizon. Anchors the original meaning 'dusk, when the sun goes low.'