马
Tap the pinyin to hear it
horse; CL:匹[pi3]; horse or cavalry piece in Chinese chess; knight in Western chess
- HSK 3.0
- Level 1
- Old HSK
- Level 3
- Strokes
- 3
- Radical
- 馬 itself
- Structure
- Upper-right enclosure 右上包
- Traditional
- 馬
- Common rank
- #23
- Unicode
- U+9A6C
Sound it out + =
Formation & memory
Break the character into parts you already know.
How 马 is formed
Pictograph (象形字)
Simplified form of 馬, a horse galloping to the left
How to remember it
horse · Heisig RSH #1453
pointed tail
Keyword method from Heisig's Remembering Simplified Hanzi.
Words with 马
The most common words first — learning a character in context makes it stick.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 马上 | at once; right away; immediately; on horseback (i.e. by military force) | |
| 马路 | street; road; CL:條|条[tiao2] | |
| 马山县 | Mashan, a county in Nanning City 南寧市|南宁市[Nan2 ning2 Shi4], Guangxi | |
| 大马 | Malaysia | |
| 马大 | Martha (biblical name) | |
| 马子 | bandit; brigand; gambling chip; chamber pot; (slang) girl; chick; babe | |
| 人头马 | Rémy Martin cognac | |
| 人马 | men and horses; troops; group of people; troop; staff; centaur | |
| 马国 | Malaysia | |
| 马山 | see 馬山縣|马山县[Ma3 shan1 Xian4] | |
| 水马 | water-filled barrier | |
| 马头 | old variant of 碼頭|码头[ma3 tou5] | |
| 人高马大 | tall and strong | |
| 马尔斯 | Mars (Roman God of War) | |
| 高头大马 | (idiom) tall, imposing horse; (of a person) tall and well-built | |
| 儿马 | (coll.) male horse; stallion | |
| 天马 | (mythology) celestial horse; fine horse; Ferghana horse; (Western mythology) Pegasus | |
| 马拉地 | Marathi language of west India | |
| 小马 | colt; pony | |
| 家马 | domestic horse |
Sound family
These characters use 马 as their sound component — compare how they read.