è
noun #3,986

Meanings

  1. 1 adversity
  2. 2 misfortune
  3. 3 hardship

Examples

Tā jīnglì le hěnduō èyùn.
He experienced a lot of misfortune.
Èguāduō'ěr shì yīgè Nánměizhōu guójiā.
Ecuador is a South American country.

Tips

usage
is rarely used alone in modern Chinese. It most commonly appears in compounds like 厄运 (bad luck/misfortune) and in transliterations of foreign names like 厄瓜多尔 (Ecuador).

Components

radical
chǎng
cliff; overhang
Outer cliff radical — the indexing component. Pictures a sloping rock-face overhang. Sets the picture of an exposed, unsafe place where someone is hemmed in. Other -radical words pick up similar pressure-from-above tone: (press down), (oppress).
semantic
jié
kneeling person
Inside, a stylised kneeling/crouching figure — a person hunched over. Pinned beneath the cliff radical, the picture is of someone bent low under an overhang, crowded by misfortune. From this image of a trapped figure came the meanings adversity, misfortune, hardship.

Stroke Order

è