癫 (diān): insane

Meanings

1 insane
2 crazy
3 epileptic
4 mentally unhinged

Characters

癫

diān

insane; epileptic; mentally deranged

Examples

他说话颠三倒四，像个癫子一样。

Tā shuōhuà diān sān dǎo sì, xiàng gè diān zi yīyàng.

He talks incoherently, like a madman.

她被压力逼得快要癫了。

Tā bèi yālì bī de kuàiyào diān le.

She was driven nearly insane by the pressure.

Tips

usage

癫 appears in medical terms like 癫痫 (epilepsy) and in colloquial usage meaning 'crazy' or 'unhinged'. The casual/slang form 癫癫的 means acting crazy or silly. Not typically used as a crude insult.

Components

radical

疒 nè

illness (radical)

Upper-left sickness radical - a person lying on a bed turned vertical, with two strokes on top suggesting sweat or fever. The indexing radical for 癫, anchoring it in the disease family alongside 病, 疼, 痛, 疯. Any character with 疒 names an ailment or symptom.

phonetic

颠 diān

topple; crown of head

Inside 颠 supplies the sound diān exactly. It also pulls semantic weight: 颠 means 'to topple, overturn, the crown of the head,' which fits the seizure-imagery at the heart of 癫 - a body shaking, falling, losing control of the top of the head. A textbook combination of clean phonetic plus reinforcing meaning.