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black / dark

hēi
12 strokes · 黑 itself is the radical — a chimney-smoked face over fire · HSK 2

Where 黑 comes from

黑 pictures a person or vent blackened by fire and soot — the bottom four dots are the tell-tale flames (the same 灬 that cooks 热 and 煮). Black, in Chinese, is literally smoke-stained.

黑 in Chinese culture

黑 darkens plenty: 黑色 (black), 天黑了 (it's gotten dark), 黑板 (blackboard). Modern slang made it sharper: 黑客 (hacker — 'black guest'), 拉黑 (to blacklist/block someone — the decisive end of a group-chat argument), 黑历史 ('dark history' — your embarrassing past photos). In opera masks, a black face means impartial and incorruptible — the judge Bao Zheng's iconic color. Not everything 黑 is bad.

Example

黑色 hēisè — black (color)

天黑了,我们回家吧。
Tiān hēi le, wǒmen huíjiā ba.
It's dark — let's go home.

How to remember it

A face smoked black over the fire 灬 — BLACK.

拉黑 'pull into the black(list)' — blocking someone on WeChat — is modern Chinese's cleanest breakup verb.

Same sound, different tones

1st hēi
black
2nd hái
still / yet
3rd hěn
very

Words unlocked by 黑

黑色 hēisè
black
天黑 tiān hēi
dark (sky)
拉黑 lāhēi
to block (someone)
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