横 (héng): horizontal; across; sideways; t…

Meanings

1 horizontal; across; sideways; transverse
2 horizontal stroke (in Chinese characters)
3 to place flat; to lay across
4 in disorder; chaotic; criss-crossed

Characters

横

héng

horizontal; across; sideways

Examples

请横着写你的名字。

Qǐng héng zhe xiě nǐ de míngzi.

Please write your name horizontally.

一条河横在眼前。

Yī tiáo hé héng zài yǎnqián.

A river lies across before our eyes.

中文可以横写也可以竖写。

Zhōngwén kěyǐ héng xiě yě kěyǐ shù xiě.

Chinese can be written horizontally or vertically.

Tips

usage

Default reading héng covers all the spatial 'horizontal / across' senses. Pair with 竖 (vertical) — they form the basic orientation pair. In calligraphy 横 is also the name of the horizontal stroke. Showpiece compounds: 横向 (lateral), 横穿 (traverse), 横扫 (sweep across), 纵横 (criss-cross), 横幅 (banner).

register

A second reading 横 (fourth tone) is the moral / fortune word — 'harsh, unreasonable, perverse' or 'unexpected (calamity)'. Locked to fixed expressions: 蛮横 (overbearing), 专横 (imperious), 横财 (ill-gotten windfall), 横祸 (sudden disaster), 飞来横祸 (a calamity from out of nowhere). Default to héng for spatial senses; use hèng when the meaning is about violence, unreasonableness, or undeserved fortune.

Components

radical

木 mù

wood; tree

Tree radical on the left — also 横's indexing radical. Direct semantic anchor: a 横 was originally a horizontal wooden bar (a door-bolt or crosspiece). From the literal beam-laid-flat came the abstract senses 'horizontal, sideways, unreasonable.' Same radical family as 板, 桌, 杆 — wooden bars and boards.

phonetic

黄 huáng

yellow

Right side 黄 supplies the sound: huáng → héng with vowel shift. The same 黄 phonetic appears in 横, 璜, 簧 — most readings stay in the huáng/héng cluster. No semantic contribution from 'yellow'; the role is purely sound.