抱 (bào): to hold in one's arms

Meanings

1 to hold in one's arms
2 to hug
3 to embrace
4 to carry (in arms)

Characters

抱

bào

to hold; to hug; to embrace

Examples

妈妈抱着孩子。

Māma bào zhe háizi.

The mother is holding the child in her arms.

他们互相拥抱。

Tāmen hùxiāng yōngbào.

They hugged each other.

她抱起了那只小猫。

Tā bào qǐ le nà zhī xiǎo māo.

She picked up the kitten in her arms.

Tips

usage

抱歉 means "sorry / apologetic." 抱怨 means "to complain." Both use 抱 in abstract senses.

grammar

抱着 with 着 shows the ongoing state of holding.

Components

radical

扌 shǒu

hand (radical form)

Hand radical on the left — also 抱's indexing radical (side-form of 手). Direct semantic anchor: hugging, holding, embracing are all hand-actions wrapped around a body. Same radical in 拿 (hold), 推 (push), 拉 (pull), 拍 (clap) — the entire manual-action family.

phonetic

包 bāo

wrap; bundle

Right side 包 supplies the sound: bāo → bào with only a tone shift. Crucially 包 also adds direct semantic flavour — to embrace IS to wrap your arms around something, the same gesture as 包 (wrap a bundle). So 抱 is one of those rare phonetic-semantic doubles where the right side reinforces the left.