后
hòu
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 後
Back, behind; after or later in time. After a place noun it means 'behind', though 后边 is the usual spoken form. After a time phrase or an action it means 'after' or 'later': 三天后 'three days later', 吃饭后 'after eating'. In this sense it closes the phrase, so 'after eating' is literally 'eat meal after'.
Sau, phía sau; về thời gian là “sau khi, sau đó”. Sau danh từ chỉ nơi nghĩa là “phía sau” (khẩu ngữ hay dùng 后边). Sau cụm thời gian hoặc hành động: 三天后 (ba ngày sau), 吃饭后 (sau khi ăn). Với nghĩa này, 后 đứng cuối cụm từ: “sau khi ăn” là 吃饭后.
NounRegister: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 064 (2026-11-14). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ · No Vietnamese entry is linked as its twin; the Hán-Việt reading is given character by character. Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Common questions
What does “后” mean?
Back, behind; after or later in time. After a place noun it means 'behind', though 后边 is the usual spoken form. After a time phrase or an action it means 'after' or 'later': 三天后 'three days later', 吃饭后 'after eating'. In this sense it closes the phrase, so 'after eating' is literally 'eat meal after'.
Is “后” formal or informal?
后 is generally neutral.