Hong

//hɔŋ// name, noun, verb

name, noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A foreign trading company in China.

    ""You and your son are about to visit China," said a Chinese agent of an old and established hong in Canton. […] The speaker was Ah Hue, or Ah Hue-Ling. He had made a reputation for honorable dealing as an agent of the tea trade."

Verb
  1. 1
    past of hang form-of, obsolete, past

    "Lyke an huge cave hewne out of rocky clifte, From whose rough vaut the ragged breaches hong"

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A local government area of Adamawa State, Nigeria.
  2. 2
    A surname from Mandarin or Taishanese.

Example

More examples

"His plane leaves for Hong Kong at 2:00 p.m."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Cantonese 行 (hong4, “trade, business”).

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Mandarin 洪 (Hóng) or Taishanese 湯 /汤 (hong¹).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.