飙 (biāo): to surge

Meanings

1 to surge
2 to soar
3 to shoot up
4 to race

Characters

飙

biāo

whirlwind; to surge

Examples

房价一直在飙升。

Fángjià yīzhí zài biāoshēng.

Housing prices have been soaring.

他喜欢在高速公路上飙车。

Tā xǐhuan zài gāosù gōnglù shang biāochē.

He likes to race on the highway.

Tips

usage

飙车 (biāochē) means 'to street race / speed recklessly'. 飙升 (biāoshēng) means 'to skyrocket' (prices, temperatures, etc.).

Components

radical

风 fēng

wind

Right-side wind radical — the indexing radical (simplified from 風). Combined with the running-pack on the left, the picture is a whirlwind kicked up by dogs galloping in formation — a windstorm of motion. From this concrete sense came the modern senses 'soar, surge, skyrocket' (股价飙升 stock prices rocketing) — anything moving with windswept speed.

phonetic

猋 biāo

running pack of dogs

Left-side 猋 — three 犬 (dogs) stacked, depicting a pack of dogs racing together. Supplies the sound biāo and a perfect semantic backing: 'pack racing' = the speeding/surging core of 飙. The modern slang 飙车 (speeding/drag-racing) literally still channels this image of dogs galloping in formation.