抑 (yì): to restrain

Meanings

1 to restrain
2 to suppress
3 to keep down
4 or (conjunction, literary)

Characters

抑

yì

to suppress; to restrain

Examples

他强忍着，抑制住了泪水。

Tā qiáng rěn zhe, yìzhì zhù le lèishuǐ.

He held back hard, suppressing his tears.

抑郁症是一种常见的心理疾病。

Yìyùzhèng shì yī zhǒng chángjiàn de xīnlǐ jíbìng.

Depression is a common mental illness.

Tips

usage

Key compounds: 抑制 (yìzhì, to inhibit/suppress), 抑郁 (yìyù, depressed), 压抑 (yāyì, repressed/oppressive). The literary conjunction use 'or' is archaic.

Components

radical

扌 shǒu

hand (radical form of 手)

Hand radical on the left — the side-form of 手. Marks 抑 as an action of the hand: pressing down, holding back, restraining. Joins the large hand-verb family with 按 press, 压 squeeze, 拒 refuse — all gestures of force applied through the palm.

phonetic

卬 áng

to look up; lift

Right side 卬 supplies the sound, drifting from áng to yì. 卬 originally pictured two people facing each other, one standing and one kneeling — the upward-looking gesture became 仰 (to look up). Pairing it with 扌 reverses the gesture: a hand pressing down rather than a face looking up.