hutong
Syllables: hu·tong/ˈhuːtɒŋ/US/ˈhuˈtɑŋ/
hutong noun: a narrow alley or street in a traditional residential district of a city in China, especially Beijing.
Noun
hutong (plural hutongs or hutong)
- A narrow alley or street in a traditional residential district of a city in China, especially Beijing.
- The fish-bone-like transportation network is also present, especially in large neighbourhoods, where a series of major hutong (usually running east-west) are either joined by smaller transverse hutong or lead to even smaller dead-end hutong that occasionally run between housing plots.1999, Wu Liangyong, “Traditional Courtyard Houses and a New Prototype”, in Rehabilitating the Old City of Beijing: A Project in the Ju’er Hutong Neighbourhood (Urbanization in Asia; 3), Vancouver...
- 'I spent my childhood in those old hutong courtyards. Relationships were warmer then.' His mouth puckered, as if hunting a lost taste.2006, Colin Thubron, “The Capital”, in Shadow of the Silk Road, London: Chatto & Windus, →ISBN, page 11
hutong meaning in Vietnamese
hutong in Vietnamese
- narrow alley or street in a traditional residential district of a Chinese city
- hồ đồng
Examples of hutong in a sentence
- In Beijing, near the Forbidden City, a winding maze of hutongs, or narrow alleyways, is home to one of the world’s most exotic markets.2007 October 16, Brice J. Bay, “Thanks, but I’ll have the bat on a stick instead”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York...
- Today, just 1,300 hutong remain, and many more neighborhoods, like the colorful Qianmen district just south of Tiananmen Square, are scheduled for renewal.2009 January 19, Andrew Jacobs, “Finding treasures in a city’s disappearing past”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York...
- Hutongs, as they were called, defined China's old capital, their grey stone walls pierced at intervals by weathered wooden doors that opened onto four-sided courtyard houses.2016, Madeleine O’Dea, “Beijing 1986”, in The Phoenix Years: Art, Resistance and the Making of Modern China, Crows Nest, N.S.W.: Allen &...
Forms of hutong
| plural | hutongs |
|---|---|
| plural | hutong |
| alternative form | hutung |
Origin of hutong
Borrowed from the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of Mandarin 衚衕 /胡同 (hútòng), 胡同 (hútòng, “narrow street”), probably: * from Mongolian гудам (gudam), from Middle Mongol ᠭᠤᠳᠤᠮ (ɣudum, “corridor, passage, passageway”); or * from Mongolian худаг (xudag), ᠬᠤᠳᠳᠤᠭ (qudduɣ, “water well”) (from the prevalence of wells where people lived).
Questions about hutong
- What does hutong mean?
- Hutong means a narrow alley or street in a traditional residential district of a city in China, especially Beijing.
- What is hutong in Vietnamese?
- Hutong in Vietnamese is hồ đồng. See Hutong meaning in Vietnamese.
- How do you use hutong in a sentence?
- In Beijing, near the Forbidden City, a winding maze of hutongs, or narrow alleyways, is home to one of the world’s most exotic markets.
- What part of speech is hutong?
- Hutong is a noun.
- How do you pronounce hutong?
- Hutong is pronounced /ˈhuːtɒŋ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of hutong?
- The plural of hutong is hutongs.
Words near hutong in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: hutong (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-hutong.wav.
Cite this entry: “hutong.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hutong. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.