动气

動氣
dòngqì
verb #32,070

Meanings

  1. 1 to get angry
  2. 2 to lose one's temper
  3. 3 to take offense

Examples

Nín bié dòngqì, mànmàn shuō.
Don't get worked up, take your time.
Tā cónglái bú wèi xiǎo shì dòngqì.
He never gets angry over little things.

Tips

register
Slightly old-fashioned and polite, common in TV-period-drama dialogue and educated older speech. Modern colloquial Mandarin would more often use 生气 (shēngqì, get angry) or 发火 (fāhuǒ, blow up). 动气 has a calmer, more measured tone — closer to 'become vexed' than 'get pissed off'.
memory
Literally 'to set (qì, vital energy) in motion'. In traditional Chinese medicine, anger (moves) the qi in the body — so the word draws directly on the medical conception that emotion is energy flow. Compare 生气 'to grow qi'.

Stroke Order

dòng