癖 (pǐ): addiction

Meanings

1 addiction
2 habit
3 obsession
4 quirk

Characters

癖

pǐ

addiction; habit; quirk

Examples

他有洁癖。

Tā yǒu jiépǐ.

He has a cleanliness obsession.

每个人都有自己的小癖好。

Měi gè rén dōu yǒu zìjǐ de xiǎo pǐhào.

Everyone has their own little quirks.

Tips

usage

癖 often appears in compounds: 洁癖 (cleanliness obsession), 癖好 (peculiar hobby/quirk), 怪癖 (strange habit). It carries a slightly negative or eccentric nuance.

Components

radical

疒 nè

sickness; ailment (radical)

Top-left sickness radical 疒 - pictograph of a person lying on a bed with sweat-drops, the canonical 'illness' marker. Files 癖 in the disease/affliction family alongside 病 (illness), 疼 (ache), 痒 (itch), 疯 (mad). Casts 癖 as an obsessive 'condition', not a neutral hobby.

phonetic

辟 pì

to open up; eccentric

Inside 辟 supplies the sound (pì to pǐ, just a tone shift) and a faint flavour: 辟 carries connotations of 'eccentric, off-to-the-side' (cf. 偏僻 'remote'). So 癖 reads as 'an eccentric ailment' - a quirky compulsion, a peculiar fixation. Same phonetic in 僻 (remote), 璧 (jade disc), 譬 (analogy).