Dictionary › 聪明

聪明

cōng ming

Old HSK 3 HSK 3.0 level 3 2-character word Traditional 聰明

聪明 (cōng ming) means "intelligent". It is an HSK 3.0 level 3 word, and was HSK 3 in the old six-level list.

What 聪明 means

1. intelligent; clever; bright
2. acute (of sight and hearing)

The characters in 聪明

• 聪cōng(literary) acute (of hearing); (bound form) clever; intelligent; sharp
• 明míngbright; opposite: dark 暗; (of meaning) clear

Example sentences

• 猫很聪明
  Māo hěn cōngming
  Cats are smart.
• 你很聪明。
  You are sharp.
• 他很聪明。
  He is sharp-witted.
• 她很聪明。
  She is very clever.
• 猫很聪明。
  Cats are smart.
• 约翰很聪明。
  John is clever.

Words starting with 聪明

• 聪明才智cōng ming cái zhìintelligence and ability
• 聪明伶俐cōng ming líng lì(idiom) bright; clever; quick-witted
• 聪明绝顶cōng ming jué dǐngexceptionally intelligent; brilliant
• 聪明过头cōng ming guò tóutoo clever by half; excessive ingenuity
• 聪明反被聪明误cōng míng fǎn bèi cōng míng wù(idiom) a clever person may become the victim of his own ingenuity…
• 聪明一世，糊涂一时cōng ming yī shì , hú tu yī shí(idiom) even the wisest can have a momentary lapse in judgment…
• 聪明一世，懵懂一时cōng ming yī shì , měng dǒng yī shísee 聰明一世，聪明一世，糊涂一时

Words containing 聪明

• 小聪明xiǎo cōng mingclever-clever; clever in trivial matters; sharp but petty-minded
• 自作聪明zì zuò cōng míng(idiom) to think oneself clever
• 事后聪明shì hòu cōng mingwise after the event (idiom); with hindsight, one should have predicted it
• 冰雪聪明bīng xuě cōng ming(idiom) exceptionally intelligent
• 绝顶聪明jué dǐng cōng minghighly intelligent; brilliant
• 耍小聪明shuǎ xiǎo cōng mingto get smart; to resort to petty tricks
• 机关算尽太聪明，反算了卿卿性命jī guān suàn jìn tài cōng ming , fǎn suàn le qīng qīng xìng mìngif one is too calculating, it will be the cause of one's own undoing…

Where 聪明 is taught

In the GraphChinese course it is part of Qualities, Adverbs & Degree Words (HSK 3), each one a topic in the dependency graph of HSK 1–6 that opens only once its prerequisites are solid.

Go deeper

• Every HSK 3 word, with the rest of its level.
• The four tones and the neutral tone, to read cōng ming correctly.
• Look up another word in the free dictionary.