怆 (chuàng): (literary) sorrowful; grieved;…

Meanings

想起往事，他心中悲怆。

Xiǎng qǐ wǎngshì, tā xīnzhōng bēi chuàng.

Thinking of the past, he was filled with sorrow.

念天地之悠悠，独怆然而涕下。

Niàn tiāndì zhī yōuyōu, dú chuàng rán ér tìxià.

Looking far at the empty land, he shed sorrowful tears alone.

history

Best known from Chen Zi'ang's line 独怆然而涕下 ('alone, grieving, my tears fall'). Modern use is mostly limited to the literary compounds 悲怆 and 凄怆.

radical

忄 xīn

heart (left-side radical)

The upright heart radical 忄, the left-side form of 心. It marks 怆 as an emotion word — grief — alongside other feeling characters like 惆 and 愠.

phonetic

仓 cāng

storehouse (phonetic)

The right side 仓 'granary' supplies the sound (cāng drifting to chuàng). The same phonetic appears in 创 and 沧, which share the c-/ch- sound family.

怆 chuàng