疯

瘋
fēng
adjective HSK 7-9 #511

Meanings

  1. 1 insane; mad; crazy
  2. 2 to go crazy; to become mentally deranged
  3. 3 wild; unrestrained

Examples

HSK 1
Nǐ fēng le ma?
Are you crazy?
HSK 6
Tā kuài bèi zhè jiàn shì bīfēng le.
He's being driven crazy by this.
HSK 7-9
粉丝们疯了一样地尖叫。
Fěnsīmen fēng le yíyàng de jiānjiào.
The fans screamed like crazy.

Tips

usage
疯 is very colloquial. 你疯了吗 is one of the most common expressions of disbelief. It's not as offensive as calling someone 'insane' in English - more like 'are you nuts?'
usage
疯子 = madman/crazy person, 发疯 = to go crazy, 疯狂 = frenzied/wild.

Components

radical
疒 nè
sickness (radical)
Sickness radical (Kangxi #104) - depicts a bed propped at an angle with a sick person leaning against it. Indexes 疯 in the disease family with 病, 痛, 疼, 症, 疫. The radical sets the meaning of 疯 firmly in pathology: madness was understood in classical thought as an illness of the spirit, not a moral failing - hence the medical anchor.
phonetic
风 fēng
wind
Inside 风 supplies the sound (fēng, exact match) and a vivid image. 风 was traditionally believed to be the carrier of madness in classical Chinese medicine - an evil 'wind disease' that entered the body and disturbed the mind. The combination is therefore semantic as well as phonetic: a 'wind illness' = madness, the original concept of 疯.

Stroke Order

疯 fēng