黑 hēi

黑 simplified

黑 traditional

hēi

black · darkness · the hidden and the illicit

HSK 2 笔画 12 部首黑 (itself) 声调第一声 (high) all hei readings →

~10 min read

笔顺 bǐshùn · Stroke order

部首 radical (whole character) 书写 your drawing

Click the character to replay. Press Try drawing to write it yourself.

字源 zìyuán Etymology & Structure

字源洞见 zìyuán dòngjiàn · Etymological Insight

黑 is an associative compound built around fire and smoke. The four dots at the bottom, 灬, are the compressed form of 火 (huǒ, fire), the same fire-dots that appear under 热 (hot), 煮 (to boil), and 烈 (fierce). Above the fire sits a form that the seal script shows as a window or chimney vent blackened with rising soot. The character is a picture of how black was actually made and seen in the ancient world: the carbon stain that smoke leaves on the surface above a flame.

This origin matters because it ties 黑 to fire rather than to night or to the absence of light. Black in Chinese is, etymologically, the residue of burning. Soot was the raw material of ink: the finest 墨 (mò, ink) was made from lampblack, the carbon collected from burning pine or oil. The character 墨 itself is 黑 over 土 (earth), the black substance pressed into a cake. So the color of writing, the color of the scholar's craft, is literally the color of controlled fire.

黑 is also one of the standing radicals: it heads its own category of characters, including 墨 (ink), 默 (silent), and 黛 (the dark blue-black pigment used for painting eyebrows). When 黑 appears as a component it almost always pulls toward darkness, ink, or obscurity. The traditional and simplified forms are identical, at 12 strokes, one of the more complex characters to remain unchanged through the script reforms.

黑色 hēisè Black & Darkness — The Literal Color

黑色 hēisè the color black

N 名词 míngcí

黑 hēi + 色 sè (color). The neutral word for black as a color. Unlike its English counterpart, black in classical Chinese cosmology was not purely negative: in the 五行 (Five Phases) system, black is the color of Water, of the North, of winter, and of the kidneys, a respectable and necessary part of the order. The dark, sinister connotations live mostly in the compounds and metaphors, less in the plain color word.

他喜欢穿黑色的西装。

Tā xǐhuan chuān hēisè de xīzhuāng.

He likes to wear black suits.

这只猫全身黑色，只有爪子是白的。

Zhè zhī māo quánshēn hēisè, zhǐyǒu zhuǎzi shì bái de.

This cat is all black except for its white paws.

在五行中，黑色代表水。

Zài wǔxíng zhōng, hēisè dàibiǎo shuǐ.

In the Five Phases, black represents Water.

黑暗 hēi'àn darkness; (figuratively) corrupt, benighted

N/Adj 名形

黑 hēi (black) + 暗 àn (dim; dark; unlit). Physical darkness, and by easy extension moral or social darkness: an age, a society, or a regime described as 黑暗 is corrupt and oppressive, a world where justice cannot be seen. 旧社会很黑暗 (the old society was full of darkness) is a stock phrase. The opposite is 光明 (guāngmíng, brightness), which carries the matching figurative sense of justice and hope.

停电了，整个房间一片黑暗。

Tíngdiàn le, zhěnggè fángjiān yí piàn hēi'àn.

The power went out and the whole room fell into darkness.

这部小说揭露了社会的黑暗面。

Zhè bù xiǎoshuō jiēlù le shèhuì de hēi'àn miàn.

This novel exposes the dark side of society.

黑暗终将过去，光明就在前方。

Hēi'àn zhōng jiāng guòqù, guāngmíng jiù zài qiánfāng.

The darkness will pass; brightness lies just ahead.

黑板 hēibǎn blackboard; chalkboard

N 名词 míngcí

黑 hēi (black) + 板 bǎn (board; plank). The classroom blackboard, a high-frequency HSK word and a useful anchor for the plain color sense. Note the related 黑板报 (hēibǎnbào), the chalkboard bulletin used in schools and work units for notices and propaganda, a small institution of its own in twentieth-century Chinese life.

老师在黑板上写了几个生词。

Lǎoshī zài hēibǎn shàng xiě le jǐ gè shēngcí.

The teacher wrote a few new words on the blackboard.

请看黑板，跟我一起读。

Qǐng kàn hēibǎn, gēn wǒ yìqǐ dú.

Please look at the blackboard and read along with me.

黑道 hēidào The Illicit Sense — Market, Underworld, Hacker

文化洞见 wénhuà dòngjiàn · Cultural Insight

The most productive sense of 黑 in modern Chinese is not the color at all but a metaphor: 黑 marks anything that operates in the dark, outside the law, off the record. A market that runs outside official channels is 黑市. The criminal underworld is 黑社会, literally "black society." An unlicensed taxi is a 黑车; an unregistered, off-the-books worker is a 黑工; a person living in a country without papers has 黑户口. Across all of these, 黑 means hidden from the authorities, illegitimate, unseen.

From this base 黑 grew a verb. To 黑 someone (黑他) is to smear them, to attack them anonymously online, to run a covert campaign against their reputation. 黑粉 (hēifěn) are "black fans," haters who follow a celebrity only to attack them. And 黑客 (hēikè), "black guest," is the standard word for a hacker, a phonetic-plus-semantic loan that happens to fit perfectly: the hacker is the intruder who works in the dark. Each of these senses is alive and high-frequency; a learner needs the illicit 黑 as much as the color 黑.

黑市 hēishì black market

N 名词 míngcí

黑 hēi (illicit; off the books) + 市 shì (market). A market operating outside legal channels, where goods or currency change hands at unofficial prices. The term was especially loaded during the planned-economy decades, when the official 黑市 exchange rate and ration-coupon trade ran alongside the state system. The 黑 here is pure metaphor: nothing about the market is colored black, only its legal status is in the dark.

在黑市上换钱风险很大。

Zài hēishì shàng huàn qián fēngxiǎn hěn dà.

Changing money on the black market is very risky.

这些药品只能在黑市买到。

Zhèxiē yàopǐn zhǐ néng zài hēishì mǎi dào.

These medicines can only be bought on the black market.

黑社会 hēishèhuì the criminal underworld; organized crime; the mob

N 名词 míngcí

黑 hēi (illicit) + 社会 shèhuì (society). Organized crime and the world it inhabits, the "black society" running parallel to and beneath the legitimate one. The members are 黑社会成员 or, in older Hong Kong cinema vocabulary, the 黑道 (black road) as opposed to the 白道 (white road) of legitimate society and the police. The 扫黑除恶 (sweep away the black, eliminate evil) campaigns are the official anti-organized-crime drives.

警方正在打击黑社会势力。

Jǐngfāng zhèngzài dǎjī hēishèhuì shìlì.

The police are cracking down on organized-crime forces.

那部电影讲的是黑社会的故事。

Nà bù diànyǐng jiǎng de shì hēishèhuì de gùshi.

That film tells a story about the criminal underworld.

黑客 hēikè hacker

N 名词 míngcí

黑 hēi (black; illicit) + 客 kè (guest; visitor). The standard Chinese word for a hacker. It works on two levels at once: phonetically 黑客 echoes the English "hacker," and semantically it reads as "black guest," the uninvited intruder who enters a system in the dark. This double fit makes it one of the more elegant tech loanwords. A 红客 (hóngkè, "red guest") is the patriotic counterpart, a hacker who attacks foreign targets in the national interest.

黑客入侵了公司的服务器。

Hēikè rùqīn le gōngsī de fúwùqì.

Hackers broke into the company's servers.

他是个很厉害的黑客。

Tā shì gè hěn lìhai de hēikè.

He's a very skilled hacker.

黑马 hēimǎ dark horse; an unexpected winner

N 名词 míngcí

黑 hēi (black; dark) + 马 mǎ (horse). A direct calque of the English "dark horse," now fully naturalized: a competitor nobody expected who surges from obscurity to win. Used constantly in sports, elections, business, and entertainment competitions. Here 黑 carries the sense of "unseen, unknown" rather than "illicit," the contestant who was in the dark until the moment of victory.

这支球队是本届比赛最大的黑马。

Zhè zhī qiúduì shì běn jiè bǐsài zuì dà de hēimǎ.

This team is the biggest dark horse of the tournament.

他在选举中成了一匹黑马。

Tā zài xuǎnjǔ zhōng chéng le yì pǐ hēimǎ.

He turned out to be a dark horse in the election.

黑白 hēibái Black & White — The Moral Binary

学者洞见 xuézhě dòngjiàn · Scholar Note

黑白 (hēibái), black and white, is the Chinese shorthand for the moral binary of right and wrong, true and false, exactly as in English. 颠倒黑白 (diāndǎo hēibái) means "to invert black and white," to deliberately confuse right with wrong. 不分青红皂白 (bù fēn qīng hóng zào bái) means to act without distinguishing the colors at all, that is, to charge ahead heedless of right and wrong. The pairing is so fixed that 黑白 alone can stand for the whole question of justice.

黑白 also names monochrome itself: 黑白电影 is a black-and-white film, 黑白照片 a black-and-white photograph. And in the game of 围棋 (wéiqí, Go), the two players are simply 黑 and 白, the black stones and the white stones, the entire contest reduced to two colors on a grid. The same two words carry the everyday image, the moral judgment, and the oldest board game in the world.

成语 chéngyǔ Idioms & Set Phrases

颠倒黑白 diān dǎo hēi bái to invert black and white — to deliberately confuse right and wrong 颠倒 diāndǎo (to turn upside down) + 黑白 hēibái (black and white). To knowingly call wrong right and right wrong, twisting the truth for one's own ends. Stronger and more accusatory than simply lying: it charges the speaker with corrupting the very standard of judgment. 他为了脱罪，竟然颠倒黑白。(To escape blame, he actually inverted black and white.)

不分青红皂白 bù fēn qīng hóng zào bái without distinguishing the colors — to act heedlessly, without regard for right and wrong 不分 bù fēn (not distinguishing) + 青红皂白 (blue, red, black, white). 皂 zào is an old word for black. To plunge into action without bothering to tell the colors apart, that is, without finding out who is actually at fault. 他不分青红皂白就把孩子骂了一顿。(Without finding out what really happened, he scolded the child outright.) The richest of the color idioms, naming four colors at once.

月黑风高 yuè hēi fēng gāo moonless and windy — a dark night fit for crime or treachery 月黑 (the moon is black, that is, no moon) + 风高 (the wind is high). A set scene-setting phrase for a night when something sinister is afoot. The full classical line is 月黑风高杀人夜 (a moonless, windy night, a night for killing). Storytellers use it to signal that the next thing to happen will be dark. The 黑 here is the literal black of a sky with no moon, doing dramatic work.

近朱者赤近墨者黑 jìn zhū zhě chì, jìn mò zhě hēi near vermilion turns red, near ink turns black — you become like the company you keep 近 jìn (close to) + 朱 zhū (vermilion) + 者 zhě (one who) + 赤 chì (red); 近 + 墨 mò (ink) + 者 + 黑 (black). Whoever stays near red dye turns red; whoever stays near ink turns black. A classic statement that environment and company shape character, attributed to the Jin-dynasty writer Fu Xuan 傅玄. Parents and teachers cite it constantly to argue for choosing good friends. Note the 黑 / 墨 link: ink is, after all, made of black.

记忆法 jìyìfǎ · Master Retention Image

Look at the four fire-dots 灬 along the bottom of 黑 and remember that this black is made of fire, not of night. Picture a chimney vent above an old stove, the surface above the flame slowly caking with soot. That carbon stain is the original black, and it is the same carbon that becomes ink. The color of writing is the color of controlled burning.

From the soot two paths open. One stays with the color: 黑色 the plain black, 黑暗 the darkness that doubles as corruption, 黑板 the board the teacher writes on, 黑白 the monochrome photograph and the moral binary at once. The other path turns metaphorical and is the one that does the most work in modern Chinese: 黑 as the mark of everything that operates out of sight. The 黑市 that trades off the books, the 黑社会 that runs beneath the legitimate one, the 黑客 who slips into a system in the dark, the 黑马 nobody saw coming.

Hold the soot and the shadow together. The literal black is the residue of fire; the figurative black is whatever hides from the light. When a Chinese speaker calls something 黑, ask first which one they mean: the color on the surface, or the secret underneath.