哀 (āi): sorrow

Meanings

1 sorrow
2 grief
3 pity

Characters

哀

āi

sorrow; grief

Examples

他的话里充满了哀。

Tā de huà lǐ chōngmǎn le āi.

His words were full of sorrow.

哀兵必胜。

Āibīng-bìshèng.

An army driven by grief will surely win.

Tips

usage

哀 is literary and mostly appears in compounds like 哀伤 (grief), 哀求 (to plead), and 悲哀 (sorrow). Rarely used alone in everyday speech.

culture

哀 is one of the seven emotions (七情) in traditional Chinese thought: 喜 (joy), 怒 (anger), 哀 (sorrow), 惧 (fear), 爱 (love), 恶 (hate), 欲 (desire).

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth

Inner 口 — pictograph of an open mouth. As the indexing radical it groups 哀 with vocal-expression chars: 哭 weep, 叹 sigh, 哮 roar, 喊 shout. The mouth wrapped in mourning robes pictures a person crying out in grief — the core image.

semantic

衣 yī

clothing; garment

Outer 衣 — pictograph of a robe with collar above and skirt panels below. Wraps around the central 口 like mourning robes drawn close around a wailing mouth. The picture is funeral garments around a cry of grief — the source of 哀's sorrow, grief, and lament senses.