霸 (bà): hegemon

Meanings

1 hegemon
2 tyrant
3 overlord
4 to dominate
5 to rule by force

Characters

霸

bà

hegemon; tyrant; to dominate

Examples

他是这一带的地头霸。

Tā shì zhè yídài de dìtóu bà.

He's the local bully around here.

学霸又考了第一名。

Xuébà yòu kǎo le dìyī míng.

The study whiz got first place again.

Tips

usage

霸 is widely used as a suffix in modern slang: 学霸 (study genius), 麦霸 (mic hog at karaoke), 路霸 (road bully). It implies dominating something.

Components

radical

雨 yǔ

rain

Top rain radical — pictograph of clouds with drops falling from a flat sky-ceiling. The indexing radical. 霸 originally described the dim moonlight after fresh rain — the radical preserves the weather scene long after the meaning shifted to 'overlord, hegemon, dominate.' Same rain-family: 雪 snow, 雷 thunder, 露 dew, 霜 frost.

semantic

革 gé

hide; leather

Bottom-left 革 — pictograph of an animal hide stretched and dried, here a semantic component. In the original 'moonlight on tanned leather' image the hide provides the pale reflecting surface; that picture also gave the modern phonetic value bà via the older reading pò 'whitish moonlight'. Same component appears in 鞋 shoe, 鞭 whip — leather things.

semantic

月 yuè

moon

Bottom-right 月 — pictograph of a crescent moon (the literal moon, distinct from the look-alike ⺼ meat radical). Carries the original meaning of 霸: the new moon, the faint white light after rain washes the sky clear. From that pale image came 'to dominate the night,' giving modern senses (霸权, 霸主).