Mahjong terminology gets thrown around constantly in our guides — pung, chow, kong, fan — usually without pausing to explain where those words actually come from. This glossary is that pause, gathered in one place.
Core Gameplay Terms
| Term | Meaning | Origin |
|---|---|---|
| Pung (碰) | A set of three identical tiles | From Cantonese, referring to the meld itself |
| Chow (吃) | A run of three consecutive tiles in one suit | From Cantonese/Mandarin roughly meaning “to eat” a tile into a set |
| Kong (槓) | A set of four identical tiles | Cantonese term for the four-tile meld |
| Fan / Faan (番) | The scoring unit in Hong Kong Mahjong | Literally “a turn” or “a fold,” referring to how score multiplies |
| Mahjong (麻雀) | The game’s name | Generally translated as “sparrow,” likely describing the sound of shuffling tiles |
The Essentials, Printable
The free cheat sheet puts the tiles, calling rules and fan scoring on 3 pages — the perfect companion to this glossary.
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Scoring & Hand Terms
Terms like Full Flush and Half Flush describe suit purity in a hand (covered in detail in our fan categories guide) — “flush” borrowed loosely from the same concept in card games, referring to a hand of matching suit composition. Chicken hand, covered in our chicken hand guide, describes a completed hand too low in value to declare — an informal, colorful bit of table slang rather than a formally codified term.
Tile Category Terms
Wan (萬), the Characters suit, literally references the character for “ten thousand” printed on the tiles. Dragons and Winds are fairly direct English translations of the honor tile categories, referencing their traditional symbolic associations rather than functioning as gameplay-specific jargon.
Why Terminology Varies by Region
Because Mahjong spread primarily through direct, table-to-table teaching rather than a single published international rulebook — as covered in our spread history guide — terminology, like scoring itself, varies somewhat by region and dialect. Cantonese-derived terms like pung, chow, and kong are the most common in English-language Hong Kong Mahjong resources, including this site, but you may encounter different romanizations elsewhere.
If a term shows up somewhere on this site that isn’t in this glossary, it’s worth flagging through our contact page — we’d rather expand this list than leave a gap.
Additional Common Terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Eyes / Pair | The two matching tiles that complete a standard four-sets-and-a-pair hand |
| Dead wall | A reserved section of tiles not drawn from during normal play, used for bonus and kong replacements |
| Self-drawn (自摸) | Winning off your own drawn tile rather than a discard |
| Exposed / Concealed | Whether a meld (or the whole hand) has been revealed through a call, versus kept hidden until the win |
| Prevailing wind / Seat wind | The round’s shared wind direction, and each player’s individually assigned wind — both affect certain fan categories |
A Note on Romanization
Because Cantonese and Mandarin romanization systems differ, and because many terms were passed down orally through communities rather than standardized in writing, you may see slightly different spellings for the same term across different English-language sources — “fan” and “faan” for the scoring unit being a good example already used throughout this site. These aren’t different concepts, just different transliterations of the same underlying word.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do some sources spell ‘fan’ as ‘faan’?
Both are transliterations of the same Cantonese term (番) for the scoring unit — spelling varies by source and romanization convention, not by meaning.
Is Mahjong terminology the same in Mandarin and Cantonese?
The underlying Chinese characters are generally shared, but pronunciation and common romanization differ between Mandarin and Cantonese, which is part of why you’ll see some terms spelled multiple ways in English-language sources.
Do American and Riichi Mahjong use the same terms as Chinese Mahjong?
No — each variant has developed its own vocabulary, covered briefly in our American Mahjong comparison and Riichi comparison. Terms don’t reliably carry over between variants.
Terms You’ll Encounter Only Occasionally
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Robbing the kong | Winning by claiming a tile another player just used to upgrade a pung into a kong |
| Last tile / Last catch | A small bonus for winning on the final tile drawable from the wall |
| Nine Gates (九莲寶燈) | A specific, highly structured limit hand covered in our limit hands guide |
Building Your Own Vocabulary Over Time
You don’t need to memorize this entire glossary before playing — most players pick up terminology naturally through repeated play, the same way any specialized vocabulary sticks better through use than through rote memorization. Treat this page as a reference to return to when a specific term comes up somewhere on this site or at the table, not a study list to work through in one sitting.
Terminology as a Window Into the Game’s History
The specific mix of Cantonese-derived gameplay terms and English descriptive terms used throughout this site reflects Hong Kong Mahjong’s own path — a traditional Chinese game, carried through Hong Kong’s Cantonese-speaking community, and taught to a largely English-speaking diaspora audience over the following century. Sites and books written by and for other communities — Mandarin-speaking mainland players, or English-language Riichi resources — naturally reflect their own linguistic paths, which is a genuinely interesting, if easy to overlook, artifact of the same decentralized spread history covered in our spread guide.
A Quick Reference You Can Return To
If you’re mid-explanation to a new player and need a fast refresher, the two tables on this page — core gameplay terms and the additional terms above — are deliberately kept concise enough to scan quickly rather than requiring a full re-read. Bookmarking this page specifically for that purpose is a completely reasonable way to use it.
