搏 (bó): to fight; to wrestle

Meanings

1 to fight; to wrestle
2 to struggle
3 to beat; to throb (of pulse)

Characters

搏

bó

to fight; to struggle; to beat

Examples

他们在拳击场上拼搏。

Tāmen zài quánjī chǎngshàng pīnbó.

They are fighting hard in the boxing ring.

心脏在搏动。

Xīnzàng zài bódòng.

The heart is beating.

他一生都在和命运搏斗。

Tā yīshēng dōu zài hé mìngyùn bódòu.

He struggled against fate his whole life.

Tips

mistakes

Don't confuse 搏 (bó, to fight/struggle) with 博 (bó, broad/abundant). 搏 has the hand radical 扌 because it involves physical struggle; 博 has 十 and means 'broad' as in 博物馆 (museum).

Components

radical

扌 shǒu

hand (radical form)

Hand radical on the left — the indexing radical. Fighting, wrestling, and grappling are hand-driven actions, so 扌 anchors 搏 in the same family as 拳 (fist), 打 (hit), 抓 (grab), 拼 (vie). Without it, the right-side phonetic alone would not encode the combat sense.

phonetic

尃 fū

to spread out (here phonetic)

Right side 尃 supplies the sound (fū → bó, labial drift). The same phonetic also powers 博 (bó, broad) and 膊 (bó, arm) — a tight bó-family. Distinguishes 搏 visually from 博 by the radical: hand-fighting versus ten-broad.