huò
noun #6,040

Meanings

  1. 1 a surname (Huo)
  2. 2 quickly; suddenly

Examples

HSK 2
Tā xìng Huò.
His surname is Huo.
HSK 6
去病汉代著名将军
Huò Qùbìng shì Hàndài zhùmíng de jiāngjūn.
Huo Qubing was a famous general of the Han dynasty.

Tips

culture
霍去病 was a legendary young general of the Western Han dynasty who fought against the Xiongnu.

Components

radical
rain
Top indexing radical (rain) - pictographic, four drops falling under a sky-line. Sets the weather/sudden-natural-event family: (snow), (thunder), (fog). In it pictures a sudden downpour from which the bird beneath bursts away - hence the 'swiftly, abruptly' meaning.
semantic
zhuī
short-tailed bird
Bottom (short-tailed bird). Combines with above into a compound ideograph: a bird flushed by sudden rain takes off in a flurry - that is the 'quickly, suddenly' sense of . Also a famous surname: 霍去病, 霍金 (Hawking). Same in , , .

Stroke Order

huò