堕 (duò) · to fall, to sink, to degenerate

Meanings

1 to fall
2 to sink
3 to degenerate

Characters

堕

duò

to fall / to sink / to degenerate

Examples

HSK 4

堕落是从小事开始的。

Duòluò shì cóng xiǎoshì kāishǐ de.

Moral decline starts with small things.

HSK 7-9

他逐渐堕入了犯罪的深渊。

Tā zhújiàn duòrù le fànzuì de shēnyuān.

He gradually sank into the abyss of crime.

Tips

register

堕 is primarily classical and literary. In modern Chinese it mostly appears in compounds: 堕落 (to degenerate / moral decay), 堕胎 (abortion), 堕入 (to fall into). It is rarely used as a standalone verb in everyday speech.

Components

radical

土 tǔ

earth; ground

Bottom 土 earth is the indexing radical: things fall toward the ground. It anchors 堕 in the family of soil and falling characters (坠 to fall, 塌 to collapse) and reinforces the literal image of debris hitting the dirt - extended to moral senses like 堕落 falling into corruption.

phonetic

陏 duǒ

collapsing earth-pile

Top 陏 is a rare phonetic frame combining 阝 mound on the left with 有 on the right, here supplying the sound for 堕. Its older sense - earth crumbling off a high bank - also leaks into the meaning: things sliding down or degenerating, which is exactly what 堕 names.