熏 (xūn): to smoke (food)

Meanings

1 to smoke (food)
2 to fumigate
3 to suffocate with smoke or fumes

Characters

熏

xūn

to smoke; to fumigate

Examples

HSK 2

这条鱼是熏过的。

Zhè tiáo yú shì xūn guò de.

This fish has been smoked.

HSK 7-9

屋里的烟把我熏得睁不开眼。

Wūlǐ de yān bǎ wǒ xūn de zhēng bù kāi yǎn.

The smoke inside made my eyes sting so much I couldn't open them.

Tips

usage

熏 can describe both deliberate smoking (food preparation) and unpleasant exposure to smoke or fumes. 熏肉 = smoked meat.

Components

radical

灬 huǒ

fire (bottom radical form)

Bottom four-dots-of-fire radical (灬 = compressed 火, Kangxi #86) - the indexing radical. Pictures flames licking up under the smoking chimney above, completing the image: fire at the bottom, smoke rising through the flue, food or object darkened on the way up. Same radical groups 热, 煮, 蒸, 焦, 然 - all heat-and-cooking chars.

pictograph

熏 xūn

smoke-chimney pictorial residue

Top 10 strokes - a fused chimney-and-smoke pictograph: a vessel narrowing upward (the slanted top), a darkened body (the central enclosed shape), and an exit flue. Historically traced to a graph of smoke rising through a covered chimney over fire. Has no standalone reading on its own - fully fused, recognise as a unit.