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形聲

简形声 · 繁形聲

Mandarin · pinyin xíng shēng

ideogram plus phonetic (one of the Six Methods 六書 of forming Chinese characters)
also known as phonogram, phonetic compound or picto-phonetic character

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Characters in this entry

形: xíng · form, shape, appearance
聲: shēng · sound, voice, noise; tone; music
声: shēng · sound, voice, noise; tone; music

Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

2–1 · xing2 sheng1

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Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

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Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

形聲 · find source passages ↗ · 形声 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

jing4 sing1

Cantonese word readings for 形聲. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

noun

phonosemantic compounding (a way of creating Han characters by combining a component that indicates the meaning with a component that indicates the pronunciation)

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack