膈 (gé) · diaphragm (anatomy)

Meanings

1 diaphragm (anatomy)

Characters

膈

gé

diaphragm

Examples

HSK 7-9

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.

HSK 7-9

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.