The character 会 (huì): to meet

A Chinese courtyard in evening gold: a wooden pavilion at the left hung with red lanterns, a grey brick wall pierced by a round moon gate that opens on green trees, bamboo at the right, wide pale paving. Four flat orange figures sit on ceramic drum stools around a round stone table set with a teapot and small cups, leaning toward one another, one with a hand raised. At the right the character 会 in near black, a wide inverted V roof over two bars and a hooked stroke.

Pronunciation: huì
Strokes: 6
Level: HSK1
Radical: 人
Made of: 人云

What it means

can; to have the skill; to know how to; to be likely to; to be sure to; to meet; to get together; meeting; gathering; (suffix) union; group; association; (bound form) a moment (Taiwan pr. [hui3])

Where its shape comes from

The long form is 會, glossed by Xu Shen as "to bring together". What it pictures is disputed. He reads two elements, one of them abbreviated, while palaeographers read on the bronzes a vessel and its lid closing one upon the other, hence things that come together. The short form used in mainland China revives an old abbreviation in use long before the 1956 tables adopted it. Its two present pieces are not components: the top does not say person, the bottom does not say cloud, and neither carries the sound.

Source: Xu Shen, Shuowen Jiezi (121 CE); the Chinese Character Simplification Scheme (1956); the Chinese University of Hong Kong character database.

How it used to be written

These are the forms of 會, the traditional character: 会 is a twentieth-century simplification, found in no ancient corpus.

Oracle bone script 商
Clerical script 東漢
See all 17 forms

Forms, sources and dates: the 字形演變 database of 小學堂, Academia Sinica, public domain (CC0).

A way to remember it

A wide inverted V for a roof, the roof of 人, and under it the whole of 云 yún from the nineteenth row: a short bar, a longer bar, then the curve and its dot. Count BOTH bars, because the reflex is to draw only one.

This is a memory aid, not the origin of the character.

Words it appears in

一会儿 yī huì r · HSK2 a moment; a while; in a moment; now...now...; also pr. [yi1 hui3 r5]
机会 jī huì · HSK3 opportunity; chance; occasion; CL:個|个[ge4]
会议 huì yì · HSK3 meeting; conference; CL:場|场[chang3],屆|届[jie4]
晚会 wǎn huì · HSK3 evening party; CL:個|个[ge4]
开会 kāi huì · HSK3 to hold a meeting; to attend a meeting
运动会 yùn dòng huì · HSK3 sports competition; CL:個|个[ge4]

See the 40 HSK words built on 会, grouped by level.

Writing it

See the stroke order of 会, animated stroke by stroke.