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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

怕

pà
to fear; to be afraid of; to dread
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 2
  • radical 心
  • 8 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *pʰraːɡs, *pʰraːɡ): semantic 心 (“heart”) + phonetic 白 (OC *braːɡ).

Cognate with 怖 (OC *pʰaːs) (Wang, 1982; Schuessler, 2007). Compare Proto-Kuki-Chin *phoo(k/ŋ) (“to startle; to alarm; to wake up”), whence Mizo phâwk (“to startle; to frighten”) (STEDT; Schuessler, 2007). Also compare Proto-Monic *phiic (“to be afraid”), whence Mon ဖေက် (“to fear”) (Schuessler, 2007).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese心 “heart (Classifier: 顆／颗 m; 個／个 c; 粒 mn)”
  • soundChinese白 “white”

Related: Proto-Kuki-Chin *phoo(k/ŋ), Mizo phâwk, Proto-Monic *phiic, Mon ဖေက်

Words built on it: 可怕, 害怕, 恐怕, 哪怕

Meanings

character
  1. to fear; to be afraid of; to dread
  2. to worry; to be concerned
  3. to be unable to withstand
  4. perhaps; supposedly; fearfully; I'm afraid that
  5. ugly
  6. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

怕：無爲也。从心白聲。

Xu Shen, c. 100 CE — the first analytical dictionary of Chinese characters.

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 因為危險或壓力的威脅，而感到軟弱、不悅。 例：害怕、貪生怕死、天不怕地不怕
  2. 擔心、疑慮。 例：這麼難的事，我怕他做不來！
  3. 可能、或許、大概。表示猜測。 例：這堆橘子怕有十來斤吧！

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

How 怕 was written 字形演變

  1. 怕 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 怕 in Regular script
    Regular
    楷書
    since c. 200 CE

Historical forms collected by the legacy etymfun dataset; most characters have several attested variants.

Sources

  • Historical glyph forms (zdic.net 字形演变) — Rights unverified
  • HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • 說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 怕