颠 (diān): to jolt; to bump

Meanings

1 to jolt; to bump
2 top; summit; peak
3 to turn upside down; to topple
4 to run; to dash (colloquial)

Characters

颠

diān

to bump; top; to turn upside down

Examples

这条路太颠了。

Zhè tiáo lù tài diān le.

This road is too bumpy.

他颠颠地跑过来了。

Tā diān diān de pǎo guòlái le.

He came running over in a bouncy way.

别把东西颠坏了。

Bié bǎ dōngxi diān huài le.

Don't damage the things from the bumping.

Tips

usage

颠 appears in many compounds: 颠倒 (diāndǎo, upside down), 颠覆 (diānfù, to subvert), 颠簸 (diānbǒ, to jolt/bump along). As a standalone verb, it often means bumpy road movement.

memory

Think of 颠 as the bouncing you feel when riding over bumps — the character contains 页 (head/page), suggesting something at the top being tossed around.

Components

radical

页 yè

page; head (radical form)

Right side 页 — the indexing head radical, originally a stylised drawing of a kneeling figure with an exaggerated head. Indexes 颠 in the head-and-face family alongside 顶 top of the head, 颊 cheek, 额 forehead. The original meaning of 颠 is the crown of the head, hence 颠倒 turning the head over, upside-down.

phonetic

真 zhēn

true; real (here phonetic)

Left side 真 supplies the sound: zhēn drifted to diān via a regular zh/d alternation. 真 originally pictured a person turned upside-down — an image of overturning that survives as a faint semantic echo in 颠's meaning to topple, to flip over. Same phonetic underlies 慎 cautious and 镇 to suppress.