bēng
verb #6,401

Meanings

  1. 1 to collapse
  2. 2 to burst
  3. 3 to crack

Examples

Shān tǐ bēngtā le.
The mountainside collapsed.
Wǒ de xīntài bēng le.
I had a mental breakdown.

Tips

usage
In internet slang, (bēng le) means 'to break down mentally' or 'to lose it'. 崩溃 (bēngkuì) is the full word for 'collapse/breakdown'. 崩盘 (bēngpán) means a market crash.

Components

radical
shān
mountain
Top mountain radical — three peaks rising. Indexes in the geography family with , , , . The radical is the literal subject of the verb: is what mountains do when they fall apart. The original sense was a landslide — the mountain itself collapsing.
phonetic
péng
friend; pair
Bottom supplies the sound (péng → bēng, regular b/p drift). historically depicted a strung pair of cowries or two strings of jade tablets — anything paired. Same phonetic appears in shed, mythical bird. The faint paired-mass image meshes with mountains splitting in two.

Stroke Order

bēng