黃

Translingual

Stroke order

Han character

See images of
Radical 201 黃

黃 (Kangxi radical 201, 黃+0, 12 strokes, cangjie input 廿一田金 (TMWC), four-corner 4480₆, composition ⿱⿱廿一⿱由八(GHJK) or ⿱⿱廿一⿱田八(T))

1. Kangxi radical #201, ⿈.
2. Shuowen Jiezi radical №486

Derived characters

• Appendix:Chinese radical/黃
• 僙, 墴, 嫹, 彉, 撗, 潢, 獚, 曂, 䐵, 熿, 𤖖, 𤗶, 𤛥, 璜, 穔, 𧝒, 䊣, 䌙, 蟥, 觵, 趪, 䤑, 䪄, 䬝, 䮲, 鱑, 䵃, 𨝴, 斢, 𤮏, 𩙁, 鷬, 𡐳, 廣, 癀, 簧, 𨶰 (Exception: Contains 黃 in all regions except mainland China which contains simplified 黄)
• 㣴, 橫, 𮘺, 𦪗, 𨊇, 𨎩, 𩞩, 𮧾 (Contains 黃 in all regions)
• 磺, 鐄 (Exception: All regions except mainland China and Vietnam which contains 黄)
• 𠾛 (Exception: Contains 黃 for Taiwan glyph and 黄 for Vietnam glyph)

Related characters

• 黄 (Japanese shinjitai and Simplified Chinese)

Further reading

Chinese Wikisource has digitized text of the Kangxi Dictionary entry for 黃:

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Wikisource

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 1516, character 3
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 47926
• Dae Jaweon: page 2046, character 11
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 7, page 4596, character 2
• Unihan data for U+9EC3

Chinese

Glyph origin

Historical forms of the character 黃
Shang	Western Zhou	Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han)	Liushutong (compiled in Ming)
Oracle bone script	Bronze inscriptions	Small seal script	Transcribed ancient scripts

Chi (2010) proposes that 黃 was originally a pictogram (象形) and the original character of 尪 (OC *qʷaːŋ, “a disabled person with a protruding chest or abdomen”). It has been phonetically borrowed for "yellow" since the era of the oracle bone script. He (1998) noted the possible ritual of burning disabled people with a protruding chest or abdomen to pray for rain as mentioned in Zuozhuan. The 口 in the upper part of the bronze inscription of 黃 might be depicting the disabled person's face facing upwards.

Li (2012), on the other hand, proposes that 黃 was originally a pictogram (象形) and the original character of 璜 (OC *ɡʷaːŋ, “semicircular jade”) as the 口 in the oracle bone script resembles a ring of jade, so the character would carry the meaning of "a man wearing a ring of jade on his chest". The meaning "yellow" is the result of rebus.

According to Shuowen, it is both a phono-semantic compound (形聲／形声, OC *ɡʷaːŋ) and ideogrammic compound (會意／会意) : phonetic 炗 (, “light”) + semantic 田 (“field”) – the color of earth, with 炗 being the ancient form of 光 (OC *kʷaːŋ, *kʷaːŋs, “light”). However, this interpretation is likely erroneous as 廿 at the top was formed as a result of corruption of 口 in the bronze inscription.

Etymology

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *hwaŋ (“shine; bright; yellow”). Cognate with 光 (OC *kʷaːŋ, *kʷaːŋs, “light; bright”), 曠 (OC *kʰʷaːŋs, “bright; well-lit”), Burmese ဝင်း (wang:, “bright”), Burmese ဝါ (wa, “yellow”).

“sexually obscene; pornographic”

Back-formation from 黃色／黄色 (huángsè).

Pronunciation

Definitions

黃

1. yellow (colour)

   黃色／黄色  ―  'huángsè  ―  yellow color

2. yolk

   雙黃白蓮蓉月餅 [Cantonese, trad.]
   双黄白莲蓉月饼 [Cantonese, simp.]

   soeng¹ wong^4-2 baak⁶ lin⁴ jung⁴ jyut⁶ beng²

   double yolk and lotus paste mooncake

3. Short for 蟹黃／蟹黄 (xièhuáng).
4. yellow; Far East Asian

   • 無論紅黃黑白種，都是耶穌心寶貝，耶穌喜愛世上所有的小孩。 [MSC, trad.]
     无论红黄黑白种，都是耶稣心宝贝，耶稣喜爱世上所有的小孩。 [MSC, simp.]

     From: 1985, 耶穌喜愛小孩 (Jesus Loves the Little Children), in 《教會聖詩》 (Hymns for God's People)

     Wúlùn hóng huáng hēi bái zhǒng, dōu shì Yēsū xīn bǎobèi, Yēsū xǐ'ài shìshàng suǒyǒu de xiǎohái.

     Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight—Jesus loves the little children of the world.
     No matter red, yellow, black, white, they are all treasured in Jesus' heart—Jesus loves all the children of the world.

5. (colloquial) pornographic; lewd

   黃片／黄片  ―  huángpiàn  ―  adult movie

6. (colloquial) to fizzle out; to fall through

   某些公司真是絕了，收啥黃啥。 [MSC, trad.]
   某些公司真是绝了，收啥黄啥。 [MSC, simp.]

   Mǒuxiē gōngsī zhēn shi jué le, shōu shá huáng shá.

   Some companies are really sucktastic; whatever purchase flops.

   這次旅遊的興致讓扒手兒給攪黃了。 [dialectal Mandarin, trad.]
   这次旅游的兴致让扒手儿给搅黄了。 [dialectal Mandarin, simp.]

   Zhèi cì lǚyóu de xìngzhi ràng páshǒur gěi jiǎo huáng le.

   The high spirit of this trip was ruined by a pickpocket.

7. (Cantonese) to let the cat out of the bag (to let a secret be known)
8. (Hong Kong, politics) supportive of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement

   See also: 黃絲

9. (Southern Min) to ripen
10. Short for 黃帝／黄帝 (Huángdì).
11. Short for 黃河／黄河 (Huáng Hé, “Yellow River”).
12. a surname

    黃宗羲／黄宗羲  ―  Huáng Zōngxī  ―  Huang Zongxi (Chinese intellectual and political theorist that lived during the latter part of the Ming dynasty into the early part of the Qing)

    黃蕙蘭 [Hokkien, trad.]
    黄蕙兰 [Hokkien, simp.]

    Ûiⁿ Hūi-lân [Pe̍h-ōe-jī]

    Oei Hui-lan (a Chinese-Indonesian socialite and First Lady of the Republic of China)

Synonyms

Descendants

Others:

• → English: Huang, Wong, Ng, Wee, Oei, Ooi
• → Malay: Oey, Oei
• → Tagalog: Ng, Uy
• → Vietnamese: vàng
• → Proto-Mien: *ʔgʷi̯əŋᴬ (“bright”)

Compounds

References

• “黃”, in 漢語多功能字庫 (Multi-function Chinese Character Database)‎, 香港中文大學 (the Chinese University of Hong Kong), 2014–

Japanese

Kanji

(“Jinmeiyō” kanji used for names, kyūjitai kanji, shinjitai form 黄)

1. Kyūjitai form of 黄

Readings

• Go-on: おう (ō)^{←わう (wau, historical)}
• Kan-on: こう (kō)^{←くわう (kwau, historical)}
• Kun: き (ki, 黃); こ (ko, 黃)
• Nanori: うい (ui); かつみ (katsumi); れい (rei)

Korean

Hanja

黃 (eumhun 누를 황 (nureul hwang))

1. Hanja form^? of 황 (“yellow; a surname”).

Vietnamese

Han character

黃: Hán Việt readings: hoàng, huỳnh
黃: Nôm readings: vàng

1. chữ Hán form of hoàng (“yellow”).
2. Nôm form of vàng (“yellow; gold”).
3. chữ Hán form of Hoàng (“a surname”).

   黃春榮 ― Hoàng Xuân Vinh

Compounds

References