吗 (mǎ): morphine

Meanings

1 morphine

Characters

吗

mǎ

morphine

Examples

医生给病人注射了吗啡。

Yīshēng gěi bìngrén zhùshè le mǎfēi.

The doctor injected the patient with morphine.

吗啡是一种强效止痛药。

Mǎfēi shì yī zhǒng qiángxiào zhǐtòngyào.

Morphine is a powerful painkiller.

Tips

usage

Third-tone 吗 only appears bound inside 吗啡 (morphine) — a phonetic transliteration coined for the drug name. The character is pulling its own sound from the phonetic 马 on the right; neither 吗 nor 啡 carries meaning here.

mistakes

If you see 吗 outside 吗啡, you're almost certainly looking at toneless 吗 (yes-no question) or rising 吗 (colloquial "what?" in 干吗). The third-tone reading is locked to this one medical compound.

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth

Left mouth radical (Kangxi #30) — the indexing radical. Anchors 吗 as a particle uttered through the mouth, the question marker that turns a statement into a yes-no question (你好吗？ "how are you?"). Same radical groups all spoken-particle characters: 吧, 啊, 呢, 嘛 — the conversational toolkit.

phonetic

马 mǎ

horse

Right phonetic 马 supplies the sound, neutralised to toneless ma for the question particle (and shifted to má or mǎ for the other two readings). The simplified 3-stroke shape replaced the 10-stroke traditional 馬. Same phonetic powers a tight family: 妈 (mum), 骂 (scold), 码 (code), 蚂 (ant) — spotting 马 on the right cues all mā/má/mǎ/mà readings.