仰 (yǎng) · to look up

Meanings

1 to look up
2 to admire; to look up to
3 to rely on

Characters

仰

yǎng

to look up; to admire

Examples

HSK 4

她仰面躺在草地上。

Tā yǎngmiàn tǎng zài cǎodì shàng.

She lay face up on the grass.

HSK 5

他仰头看着天空。

Tā yǎngtóu kàn zhe tiānkōng.

He looked up at the sky.

HSK 7-9

我一直很仰慕这位科学家。

Wǒ yìzhí hěn yǎngmù zhèwèi kēxuéjiā.

I have always admired this scientist.

Tips

usage

Often appears in compounds: 仰头 (look up), 仰慕 (admire), 仰望 (gaze up at), 信仰 (faith/belief).

usage

仰 (look up) is the opposite of 俯 (fǔ, look down). The pair 俯仰 means 'looking up and down' or figuratively 'every aspect of life'.

Components

radical

亻 rén

person (left-side)

Person radical on the left marks 仰 as a posture or attitude verb - a person tilts their head back to look up. The original 卬 already pictured this stance; adding 亻 made the human element explicit. Same radical drives 信 (trust), 依 (rely), 优 (excellent).

phonetic

卬 áng

raise the head; lofty

卬 supplies the sound - áng → yǎng - through a vowel shift, and is also semantically transparent: 卬 originally pictured a standing person facing a kneeling one, hence the upward gaze. Same phonetic drives 昂 (áng, hold high), 抑 (yì, repress, with shifted tone), 迎 (yíng, welcome).