erhu
er·hu/ˈɜːhuː/noun
erhu is a noun meaning “A type of bowed spike fiddle having two strings, originating in China as part of the huqin family of string instruments” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled E-R-H-U and has 2 syllables (er·hu), and it appears about once in every 32 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of erhu is erhus.
What does erhu mean?
noun
- 1
A type of bowed spike fiddle having two strings, originating in China as part of the huqin family of string instruments.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce erhu?
- /ˈɜːhuː/
- /ɚˈhuː/
Erhu has 2 syllables, split er·hu in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of erhu
- erhus plural
- erh hu
- erh-hu
- urheen
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is erhu?
Erhu appears about once in every 32 million words in written English, the 171,907th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Erhu in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Chinese fiddle:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | erhu |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does erhu come from?
From Mandarin 二胡 (èrhú), from 二 (èr, “two”) + 胡 (hú, “fiddle; short for 胡琴, a family of Chinese vertical fiddles”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).