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挨

ái / āi
verb HSK 6 #5,027

Meanings

  1. 1 to suffer; to endure (something unpleasant)
  2. 2 to pull through; to drag out (hard times)
  3. 3 to delay; to stall; to dawdle

Examples

落后就要挨打。
Luòhòu jiùyào áidǎ.
If you fall behind, you'll take a beating.
那几年全家都挨饿。
Nà jǐ nián quánjiā dōu ái'è.
Those years, the whole family went hungry.
他做错事，挨了妈妈一顿骂。
Tā zuòcuò shì, ái le māma yídùn mà.
He did something wrong and got a scolding from mom.

Tips

usage
ái is always paired with something painful or undesired that the subject is on the receiving end of. The compound family: 挨打 (take a beating), 挨揍 (get thrashed), 挨骂 (get scolded), 挨饿 (go hungry), 挨冻 (suffer from cold), 忍饥挨饿 (endure hunger). A famous Mao-era slogan: 落后就要挨打 — 'fall behind and you'll get beaten' — used to justify modernization drives.
mistakes
If the word describes adjacency, sequence, or proximity, switch to the 挨 reading (see the āi entry). ái is grammatically passive in flavour — the subject suffers something done to them. Hint: any compound about taking blows, hunger, cold, or scolding is ái.

Components

radical
扌 shǒu
hand (radical form)
Left hand radical — the indexing component, the side-form of 手. Anchors 挨 in physical contact: leaning against, sitting next to, touching shoulders. Also fits the secondary reading ái (挨打 = take a beating) — being struck by a hand. Same family as 摸, 推, 拍, 抓.
phonetic
矣 yǐ
(classical sentence-final particle)
Right 矣 supplies the sound — yǐ drifted to āi and ái. The Old Chinese onset connects them through a velar / glottal alternation. 矣 itself is a classical particle marking completion; its role here is purely phonetic, with no semantic contribution to the contact-action meaning.

Stroke Order

挨 ái