殃 meaning and stroke order
Misfortune, disaster, calamity
How to write 殃, stroke by stroke
9 strokes in order. Each box adds the next stroke in red. Write top to bottom and left to right, and finish enclosing strokes last.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
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- 8
- 9
Meaning of 殃
Definitions from CC-CEDICT, grouped by pronunciation.
- calamity
How 殃 is built
Phono-semantic (sound + meaning) character. Death.
歹 gives the meaning and 央 hints at the sound.
Radical: 歹 (corpse), shared by 29 characters on this site.
How to remember 殃
殃 combines 歹 (dǎi), the 'death' component, with 央 (yāng), which gives the sound. Picture death striking right in the center (央) of your life, and that is a calamity.
殃 rarely appears alone in modern Chinese. It mostly shows up in fixed words like 遭殃 (zāoyāng) and the idiom 殃及池鱼. Example: 大雨一来，农民就遭殃了。(Dà yǔ yì lái, nóngmín jiù zāoyāng le.) When the heavy rain came, the farmers suffered.
Common mistake: Learners often write the left side as 夕 or forget the top horizontal stroke of 歹. Some also confuse 殃 with 秧 (yāng, seedling), which has the same sound but uses 禾 for grain.
Common words with 殃
Ordered by HSK level, then by how often they appear in everyday Chinese.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 遭殃 | zāoyāng | to suffer a calamity | HSK 7-9 |
殃 in example sentences
Real sentences from the Tatoeba project, with pinyin and English.
Questions about 殃
How many strokes are in 殃?
殃 is written with 9 strokes. The diagrams on this page number every stroke in the order it is written, with the new stroke shown in red.
What does 殃 mean?
殃 (yāng) means misfortune, disaster, calamity. A common word with it is 遭殃 (zāoyāng), meaning "to suffer a calamity".
How do you pronounce 殃?
殃 is pronounced yāng, in the first tone (high and level).
What is the radical of 殃?
The radical of 殃 is 歹, which carries the idea of "corpse". Dictionaries list 殃 under this radical.
Is 殃 on the HSK exam?
Yes. 殃 is part of the HSK 7-9 character list in the HSK 3.0 standard.
What does 殃及 (yāngjí) mean?
殃及 means to bring disaster to someone else, usually an innocent party. It appears in the idiom 殃及池鱼 (yāng jí chí yú), where the fish in the pond suffer when a fire is put out with pond water.
Is 遭殃 formal or casual?
遭殃 is common in everyday speech and is not very formal. People use it lightly too, for example saying the cake 遭殃了 after a child got to it.