Dictionary › 胡同

胡同

hú tòng

Old HSK 5 HSK 3.0 level 5 2-character word Measure word 条

胡同 (hú tòng) means "hutong, narrow lane". It is an HSK 3.0 level 5 word, and was HSK 5 in the old six-level list.

What 胡同 means

1. lane; alley

Other readings

胡同 is 多音字 — it is read more than one way, and the reading changes the meaning.

• hú tòngvariant of {胡同|hú tòng}

The characters in 胡同

• 胡húnon-Han people, esp. from central Asia; reckless; outrageous
• 同tónglike; same; similar

Example sentences

• 这是个死胡同。
  Zhè shì gè sǐhútòng.
  This is a dead-end alley.
• 我家后面有条胡同。
  There's an alley behind my house.
• 胡同是一种跟中国北京有关的窄街路。
  Hutongs are a type of narrow street, most commonly associated with Beijing, China.
• 在北京，胡同是由四合院的传统居所排形成。
  Zài Běijīng, hútòng shì yóu sìhéyuàn de chuántǒng jūsuǒ pái xíngchéng.
  In Beijing, hutongs are alleys formed by lines of siheyuans, the traditional courtyard residences.
• “胡同”这个词，本意是“水井”，来源于700年前的蒙古语。
  "hútòng " zhège cí, běnyì shì "shuǐjǐng ", láiyuányú 700 niánqián de Měnggǔyǔ.
  The term "hutong", originally meaning "water well", came from the Mongolian language about 700 years ago.
• 他们的四合院要小得多，设计和装饰也比较简单，胡同也比较窄。
  Their siheyuans were far smaller in scale and simpler in design and decoration, and the hutongs were narrower.

Words starting with 胡同

• 胡同儿hú tòng rerhua form of 胡同

Words containing 胡同

• 死胡同sǐ hú tòngdead end; blind alley

Where 胡同 is taught

In the GraphChinese course it is part of Geography, Places & Social Position (HSK 5), each one a topic in the dependency graph of HSK 1–6 that opens only once its prerequisites are solid.

Go deeper

• Every HSK 5 word, with the rest of its level.
• The four tones and the neutral tone, to read hú tòng correctly.
• Look up another word in the free dictionary.