(hé) - what, how, why (formal/literary; in 任何, 如何, 为何) in Mandarin
héTraditional: 何
#5018 of 5,000 Core 5000
Translation
what, how, why (formal/literary; in 任何, 如何, 为何)
Word origin
A phono-semantic character: the person radical 亻sits beside 可 (kě), which supplies the sound; in the literary register it means what, how or why.
- Origin
- phono-semantic
- Root
- 亻 (person radical) + 可 (kě, phonetic)
Stroke order
何
Examples
？
How should we solve this problem?
。
Anyone can take part.
？
Why didn't you tell me?
。
Any time to set off is fine.
？
How should this matter be handled?
何 (hé) is a formal or literary question word meaning what, how, or why. In modern speech it shows up almost exclusively inside set phrases such as 任何 (any), 如何 (how), and 为何 (why).
Appears in 4 words
Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 何.
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