夜
Tap the pinyin to hear it
night
Formation & memory
Break the character into parts you already know.
How 夜 is formed
Ideographic compound (会意字)
A person 亻 sneaking by under cover 亠 of night 夕
How to remember it
night · Heisig RSH #872
top hat + 人 person + walking legs + 掉 drop
Keyword method from Heisig's Remembering Simplified Hanzi.
Words with 夜
The most common words first — learning a character in context makes it stick.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 夜大学 | evening college | |
| 夜行性 | nocturnality; nocturnal | |
| 平安夜 | Silent Night (Christmas carol); Christmas Eve | |
| 夜开花 | bottle gourd (i.e. 瓠瓜[hu4 gua1]) | |
| 一夜之间 | (lit. and fig.) overnight | |
| 开夜车 | to burn the midnight oil; to work late into the night | |
| 一夜情 | one night stand | |
| 小年夜 | (coll.) the night before lunisolar New Year's Eve; (Tw) the night before New Year's Eve (e… | |
| 夜大 | evening college (abbr. for 夜大學|夜大学[ye4 da4 xue2]) | |
| 大夜 | the second half of the night; early morning (cf. 小夜[xiao3 ye4], evening); (fig.) eternal r… | |
| 子夜 | midnight | |
| 黑天半夜 | (idiom) in the middle of the night | |
| 夜市 | night market | |
| 长夜难明 | lit. many nights under a harsh moon; long years of oppression (idiom) | |
| 小夜 | the first half of the night; evening (cf. 大夜[da4 ye4], early morning) | |
| 夜行军 | a night march | |
| 白夜 | white night | |
| 夜行 | night walk; night departure; nocturnal | |
| 上夜 | to be on night duty | |
| 大半夜 | the middle of the night |
Sound family
These characters use 夜 as their sound component — compare how they read.