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

HSK 3

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.

HSK 6

房价一直在飙升。

Fángjià yīzhí zài biāoshēng.

Housing prices have been soaring.

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.