趴 (pā): to lie face down

Meanings

1 to lie face down
2 to lean over

Characters

趴

pā

to lie face down; to lean over

Examples

他趴在桌子上睡着了。

Tā pā zài zhuōzi shàng shuìzháo le.

He fell asleep lying face down on the table.

孩子趴在地上画画。

Háizi pā zài dìshàng huàhuà.

The child lay on the ground drawing.

Tips

usage

趴 specifically means lying prone (face down). Compare with 躺 (tǎng) which means lying on one's back (face up).

Components

radical

足 zú

foot; leg

Foot radical on the left — indexing 趴 in the body-position family alongside 跪 kneel, 跑 run, 跳 jump, 蹲 squat, 踢 kick. Although lying face-down doesn't seem foot-centric, 足 generalises here to 'whole-body posture' and groups 趴 with the other physical-stance verbs.

phonetic

八 bā

eight (here phonetic)

八 supplies the sound — bā → pā with a modest aspiration shift. The 'eight' meaning is irrelevant; 趴 is a relatively recent Ming-era coinage and chose 八 purely for its compact two-stroke phonetic value. Same bā/pā phonetic in 扒 (scrape), 叭 (trumpet sound), 吧 (modal particle).