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

这条鱼是熏过的。

Zhè tiáo yú shì xūn guò de.

This fish has been smoked.

屋里的烟把我熏得睁不开眼。

Wūlǐ de yān bǎ wǒ xūn de zhēng bù kāiyǎn.

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 (xūnròu) = 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.