膈 (gé): diaphragm (anatomy)

Meanings

1 diaphragm (anatomy)

Characters

膈

gé

diaphragm

Examples

膈是分隔胸腔和腹腔的肌肉。

Gé shì fēngé xiōngqiāng hé fùqiāng de jīròu.

The diaphragm is the muscle that separates the chest cavity from the abdominal cavity.

打嗝是膈的痉挛引起的。

Dǎgé shì gé de jìngluán yǐnqǐ de.

Hiccups are caused by spasms of the diaphragm.

Tips

memory

膈 has the flesh radical 月 (a body part) plus 鬲 (an ancient cooking tripod): an organ that partitions the body like a tripod's inner wall. Note that 膈 (diaphragm) and 隔 (to separate) share both the sound and the 鬲 component.

register

The anatomy reading is gé. Northern colloquial speech also uses two restricted readings: gè in 膈应 (to feel grossed out or annoyed) and gā in 膈肢窝 (the armpit). For the body organ it is always gé.

Components

radical

⺼ ròu

meat; flesh (radical form)

Left meat-flesh radical, the side form of 肉, visually identical to the moon 月 but a different semantic source. It anchors 膈 in the anatomy family with 胸 chest, 肺 lung, 肝 liver. Whenever a word names a body part, this radical is usually pinned to the left.

phonetic

鬲 gé

tripod cauldron (here phonetic and semantic)

Right 鬲 supplies the sound gé, an exact match, and doubles as a faint semantic hint: a 鬲 was a tripod cooking cauldron with an internal partition, mirroring the diaphragm, a muscular wall dividing the chest from the abdomen. Sound and meaning interlock unusually neatly.