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降

xiáng / jiàng
verb #3,853

Meanings

  1. 1 to surrender; to capitulate
  2. 2 to subdue; to conquer; to tame

Examples

敌军最终投降了。
Díjūn zuìzhōng tóuxiáng le.
The enemy troops finally surrendered.
他宁死不降。
Tā nìngsǐ bù xiáng.
He would rather die than surrender.
孙悟空降龙伏虎，无所不能。
Sūn Wùkōng xiánglóngfúhǔ, wúsuǒ bùnéng.
Sun Wukong vanquishes dragons and tigers — there's nothing he cannot do.

Tips

usage
xiáng is a focused reading: 'to lay down arms' or, transitively, 'to bring something fierce under control'. The everyday compound is 投降 (surrender). The transitive subdue-sense is more literary or fantasy-flavoured: 降伏 / 降服 to subdue, and the four-character 降龙伏虎 (vanquish dragons and tigers) — a staple of martial-arts and mythology language.
mistakes
Outside the surrender / subdue family, 降 is the jiàng reading (descend, drop, lower — see the jiàng entry). A quick test: if the sentence is about giving in or bringing something wild to heel, xiáng; if it's about temperature, prices, planes landing, rain falling — jiàng.

Components

radical
阝 fù
mound; hill (left-阝)
Left ear 阝 — the side-form of 阜 (mound), Kangxi #170. On the LEFT it always means 'hill, slope, stepped earth'; on the RIGHT it would be 邑 (city). 降 originally pictured feet stepping down a hill, hence 'descend, fall, lower.' Same radical in 院, 阶, 险, 阳, 阴.
semantic
夅 xiáng
two feet stepping down
Right side 夅 — two downward-pointing feet, the original picture of someone stepping off a height. Together with the hill on the left this gives the literal scene of descending a slope. 夅 is rarely seen alone today, but survives as the phonetic-semantic core of 降 and 隆.

Stroke Order

降 xiáng