bēng
verb #6,401

Meanings

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

Examples

HSK 5
Wǒ de xīntài bēng le.
I had a mental breakdown.
HSK 7-9
山体崩塌
Shāntǐ bēngtā le.
The mountainside collapsed.

Tips

usage
In internet slang, 崩了 (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