崖

yá

noun #16,249

Meanings

1 cliff
2 precipice
3 escarpment

Characters

崖

yá

cliff; precipice

Examples

悬崖上长着一棵松树。

Xuányá shàng zhǎng zhe yī kē sōngshù.

A pine tree grows on the cliff.

小心！前面就是悬崖。

Xiǎoxīn! Qiánmiàn jiùshì xuányá.

Be careful! There's a cliff ahead.

Tips

memory

The character has 山 (mountain) on top of 圭 (jade tablet). Picture a mountain face that drops off like a flat tablet edge — a cliff.

usage

Most commonly seen in 悬崖 (xuányá, cliff/precipice). The idiom 悬崖勒马 (xuányálèmǎ) means 'to rein in the horse at the edge of the cliff' — to pull back from the brink just in time.

Components

radical

山 shān

mountain

Three-stroke mountain radical on top, the indexing radical, with peaks rising. 崖 means a cliff or steep mountain face — the most vertical kind of upland terrain. The radical groups 崖 with 岭 ridge, 峰 peak, 岗 hillock, 峡 gorge.

phonetic

厓 yá

cliff edge (here phonetic and semantic)

Bottom 厓 supplies the sound — yá read straight across with no shift. 厓 itself is the older standalone char for cliff, picturing a sheltering rock-face. So 山 simply makes the cliff imagery explicit by adding a mountain on top of what was already a cliff char.

Stroke Order

崖 yá

崖