玄
Tap the pinyin to hear it
black; mysterious
- HSK 3.0
- Level 7–9
- Strokes
- 5
- Radical
- 玄 itself
- Structure
- Top–bottom 上下
- Traditional
- 玄
- Common rank
- #1,742
- Unicode
- U+7384
Sound it out + + =
Formation & memory
Break the character into parts you already know.
How 玄 is formed
How to remember it
mysterious · Heisig RSH #2411
top hat + cocoon
Keyword method from Heisig's Remembering Simplified Hanzi.
Words with 玄
The most common words first — learning a character in context makes it stick.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 天地玄黄 | first line of the Thousand Character Classic 千字文[Qian1 zi4 wen2] | |
| 玄武门之变 | Xuanwu gate coup of June 626 in early Tang, in which Li Shimin 李世民 killed his brothers, se… | |
| 玄武区 | Xuanwu, a district of Nanjing City 南京市[Nan2 jing1 Shi4], Jiangsu | |
| 九天玄女 | Xuan Nü, a fairy in Chinese mythology | |
| 玄学 | Wei and Jin philosophical school amalgamating Daoist and Confucian ideals; translation of … | |
| 玄机 | profound theory (in Daoism and Buddhism); mysterious principles | |
| 玄武岩 | (geology) basalt | |
| 玄米茶 | genmaicha; Japanese tea with added roasted brown rice | |
| 玄理 | profound theory; philosophical theory of Wei and Jin 玄學|玄学 sect | |
| 玄石 | (literary) black stone (esp. one used for steles and tombstones); tombstone; stele; old na… | |
| 玄色 | black (without gloss); black with a hint of red in it | |
| 白顶玄鸥 | (bird species of China) brown noddy (Anous stolidus) | |
| 玄关 | entrance hall; vestibule | |
| 玄青 | deep black | |
| 故弄玄虚 | deliberately mystifying; to make sth unnecessarily complicated | |
| 玄武 | Black Tortoise (the seven mansions of the north sky); (in Daoism) God of the north sky | |
| 玄武质熔岩 | basalt; also written 玄熔岩[xuan2 rong2 yan2] | |
| 玄远 | profound; abstruse mystery | |
| 白玄鸥 | (bird species of China) white tern (Gygis alba) | |
| 唐玄宗 | Tang Emperor Xuanzong (685-762), also known as Emperor Ming of Tang 唐明皇[Tang2 Ming2 huang2… |
Sound family
These characters use 玄 as their sound component — compare how they read.
| Character | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 玄 sound part | deep, profound, abstruse | |
| 弦 | bow string; string instrument; hypotenuse | |
| 畜 | livestock, domestic animals | |
| 眩 | to confuse; dazed, disoriented | |
| 炫 | to glitter, to shine; to show off, to flaunt | |
| 舷 | bulwarks, gunwhale | |
| 铉 | a device for carrying a tripod | |
| 泫 | to weep, to cry; to shine, to glisten |