堕 (duò): to fall

Meanings

1 to fall
2 to sink
3 to degenerate

Characters

堕

duò

to fall / to sink / to degenerate

Examples

他逐渐堕入了犯罪的深渊。

Tā zhújiàn duòrù le fànzuì de shēnyuān.

He gradually sank into the abyss of crime.

堕落是从小事开始的。

Duòluò shì cóngxiǎo shì kāishǐ de.

Moral decline starts with small things.

Tips

register

堕 is primarily classical and literary. In modern Chinese it mostly appears in compounds: 堕落 (to degenerate / moral decay), 堕胎 (abortion), 堕入 (to fall into). It is rarely used as a standalone verb in everyday speech.

Components

radical

土 tǔ

earth; ground

Bottom 土 earth is the indexing radical: things fall toward the ground. It anchors 堕 in the family of soil and falling characters (坠 to fall, 塌 to collapse) and reinforces the literal image of debris hitting the dirt — extended to moral senses like 堕落 falling into corruption.

phonetic

陏 duǒ

collapsing earth-pile (phonetic frame)

Top 陏 is a rare phonetic frame combining 阝 mound on the left with 有 having on the right, here supplying the sound for 堕 (duò). Its older sense — earth crumbling off a high bank — also leaks into the meaning: things sliding down or degenerating, which is exactly what 堕 names.