秽 (huì): filthy

Meanings

1 filthy
2 foul
3 dirty (classical/literary)

Characters

秽

huì

filthy / foul / dirty

Examples

他出口秽语，令在场的人十分不悦。

Tā chūkǒu huì yǔ, lìng zàichǎng de rén shífēn bùyuè.

He uttered foul language, making everyone present very displeased.

污秽之地不宜久留。

Wūhuì zhī dì bùyí jiǔliú.

One should not linger in a filthy place.

古代祭祀前须沐浴斋戒，以去秽气。

Gǔdài jìsì qián xū mùyù zhāijiè, yǐ qù huì qì.

Before ancient sacrificial rites, one had to bathe and fast to cleanse oneself of foul qi.

Tips

usage

秽 is a classical/literary bound form — it almost never appears alone in modern Chinese. It compounds into words like 污秽 (filth), 秽语 (obscene language), 淫秽 (obscene/indecent), and 自惭形秽 (to feel ashamed of oneself).

Components

radical

禾 hé

grain; growing crop

Left grain radical 禾 — a stalk of millet with a drooping head, the standard indexing radical for crop and agriculture characters. In 秽 it pictures weeds choking grain: filthy overgrowth that ruins a field. Same family: 稻 rice, 秋 autumn, 种 seed, 私 private.

phonetic

岁 suì

year; age (here phonetic)

Right 岁 supplies the sound — suì drifting to huì via the s/h alternation seen in older Chinese. 岁 is a simplified form of 歲, originally a harvest-tally character, faintly reinforcing the agricultural backdrop of weeds running wild season after season.