悯 (mǐn): to pity

Meanings

1 to pity
2 to feel compassion for
3 to feel sorrow for

Characters

悯

mǐn

to pity, to feel compassion (literary)

Examples

他悯其遭遇，伸出援手。

Tā mǐn qí zāoyù, shēnchū yuán shǒu.

He pitied their plight and offered a helping hand.

圣人悯苍生之苦。

Shèngrén mǐn cāng shēng zhī kǔ.

The sage felt compassion for the suffering of the people.

Tips

register

悯 is a classical/literary character rarely used alone in modern Chinese. It appears in compounds like 怜悯 (liánmǐn, to pity/compassion), 悯然 (mǐnrán, with pity), and 可悯 (kěmǐn, pitiful).

Components

radical

忄 xīn

heart (radical form of 心)

Heart-on-the-left radical — the side-form of 心 used in feeling verbs (怕 fear, 情 emotion, 怀 cherish, 忧 worry). Marks 悯 as belonging to the inner-state family: pity is a movement of the heart toward someone suffering.

phonetic

闵 mǐn

to grieve; surname Min (here phonetic + semantic)

Right 闵 supplies sound and meaning — mǐn = mǐn, identical reading. 闵 itself originally meant 'grief at the door' (gate radical wrapping 文 — mourning script written by the doorway). The heart radical on the left makes the meaning explicit: the heart's response to another's grief, hence 'pity.'