noun #5,358

Meanings

  1. 1 anger
  2. 2 fury
  3. 3 to rage

Examples

Tā fēicháng fènnù.
He was extremely angry.
Tā nù mù ér shì.
She glared with fury.

Tips

memory
(slave) + (heart) — a heart enslaved by rage.
usage
Common in 愤怒 (fènnù, furious) and 发怒 (fānù, to get angry).

Components

radical
xīn
heart; mind
Bottom heart radical — the indexing radical. Anchors the emotion. Anger is one of the canonical heart-states in classical Chinese psychology, alongside love, fear, and longing. The radical is in its full bottom form here (not the contracted ), which is typical for stacked compounds with the phonetic on top.
phonetic
slave; servant (here phonetic)
Top component supplies the sound: nú → nù with only a tone shift. Adds a striking semantic flavour — a heart enslaved by passion — that fits the meaning beautifully. The same phonetic also yields nǔ 'exert' and nǔ 'crossbow' (a bow under tension).

Stroke Order