餬 meaning and stroke order

The food radical 飠 on the left tells you this is about eating, and 胡 (hú) on the right gives the sound. Picture a bowl of thin porridge, the most basic food you need just to get by.

餬 is a rare variant form tied to the idea of thin gruel and scraping a living. Today you will almost always see the expression written 糊口 (húkǒu), but older or literary texts may write 餬口. Example: 他靠打零工餬口。(Tā kào dǎ línggōng húkǒu.) He makes a bare living from odd jobs.

Common mistake: Learners often assume 餬 is the everyday character for paste or porridge, but modern Chinese normally uses 糊 (hú) with the rice radical 米, so writing 餬 in ordinary writing looks odd. Also do not confuse it with 湖 (hú, lake) or 蝴 (hú, as in 蝴蝶), which share the 胡 sound part.