Hangul syllable Hwae

홰 means a bird's perch; it also has a torch sense.

In standard Korean, 홰 names the wooden bar across a cage or chicken coop where a bird sits. The torch compound is spelled 횃불 in South Korean writing; as of 2025, North Korean standard spelling is 홰불. In 횃불, a linking ㅅ called 사이시옷 appears between 홰 and 불, meaning fire.

A 1999 Korean-language study of 횃불 cites 홰 in volume 18 of 월인석보, a Korean text. It also discusses a disputed reading of 烽, a character for a signal fire, as 홰 in 혜성가, an old Silla poem; the study does not establish this as the word's first secure appearance. Historical records use torch and beacon language in overlapping contexts, but a torch is the burning object and a beacon is part of a signaling system.

Which Korean word did you mean?

Use 홰 for a bird's perch; 횃대 is a clothes bar.

National Institute of Korean Language guidance distinguishes the bird's perch from 횃대, a rod for hanging clothes. 횟대 also appears as a spelling for a bird stand, but the institute recommends 홰.

Why does 홰 sometimes appear as 홰?

홰 is the same syllable in a decomposed form.

Unicode can store 홰 as one joined syllable or as two Hangul letters, ᄒ + ᅫ. Normalization, a text-processing step, can convert one form to the other without changing the Korean reading; software comparing raw strings may need to normalize both first.