bǐng / píng
verb #15,153

Meanings

  1. 1 to hold (one's breath)
  2. 2 to suppress; to hold back
  3. 3 to get rid of; to set aside

Examples

Tā bǐng zhù hūxī, yīdòngbùdòng.
He held his breath and stayed perfectly still.
Quánchǎng bǐngxī, děng zhe jiéguǒ.
The whole room held its breath, waiting for the result.

Tips

usage
The bǐng reading covers holding back and shutting out: 屏住 (to hold in), 屏息 (to hold one's breath), 屏气 (to stop breathing momentarily), and the literary 屏除 (to do away with).

Components

radical
door; single leaf
at the upper-left, contracted by one stroke in this corner, depicts a single door leaf. It anchors in the panel-and-partition idea: a 屏风 is a movable indoor screen. The radical is conventionally listed as despite the visible door shape.
phonetic
bìng
to combine; together (here phonetic)
inside supplies the sound, bìng drifting to píng through b/p alternation. It originally pictured two people side by side, meaning to merge, an image that suits a folding screen: panels combined into one barrier.

Stroke Order

bǐng