冬
Tap the pinyin to hear it
winter
- HSK 3.0
- Level 2
- Old HSK
- Level 3
- Strokes
- 5
- Radical
- 冫 +3
- Structure
- Top–bottom 上下
- Traditional
- 冬
- Common rank
- #1,073
- Unicode
- U+51AC
Sound it out + =
Formation & memory
Break the character into parts you already know.
How 冬 is formed
Ideographic compound (会意字)
A man walking 夂 on ice ⺀
Components 夂 ⺀
How to remember it
winter · Heisig RSH #435
walking legs + ice
Keyword method from Heisig's Remembering Simplified Hanzi.
Words with 冬
The most common words first — learning a character in context makes it stick.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 天门冬科 | Asparagaceae, family of flowering plants which includes asparagus | |
| 冬不拉 | Dombra or Tambura, Kazakh plucked lute | |
| 春生，夏长，秋收，冬藏 | sow in spring, develop in summer, harvest in autumn, store in winter (idiom) | |
| 天门冬 | asparagus | |
| 亚冬会 | Asian Winter Games | |
| 冬字头 | name of "walk slowly" component 夂[zhi3] in Chinese characters | |
| 南飞过冬 | (of birds) to migrate south for the winter | |
| 冬运会 | winter games | |
| 核冬天 | nuclear winter | |
| 无冬无夏 | regardless of the season; all the year round | |
| 乌冬面 | udon noodles | |
| 冬天 | winter | |
| 冬病夏治 | to treat winter diseases in the summer (TCM) | |
| 冬青树 | holly | |
| 冬奥会 | Winter Olympics | |
| 门冬 | abbr. for 天門冬|天门冬[tian1 men2 dong1], asparagus | |
| 冬日 | wintertime | |
| 冬令时 | standard time (as opposed to daylight saving time 夏令時|夏令时[xia4 ling4 shi2]) | |
| 各拉丹冬山 | Mount Geladaindong or Geladandong in Qinghai (6621 m), the main peak of the Tanggula mount… | |
| 波塞冬 | Poseidon, god of the sea in Greek mythology |
Sound family
These characters use 冬 as their sound component — compare how they read.