noun #4,626

Meanings

  1. 1 handkerchief
  2. 2 used in transliterations (Pa)

Examples

Tā yòng shǒupà cā le cā yǎnlèi.
She wiped her tears with a handkerchief.
Pàjīnsēn bìng shì yī zhǒng shénjīng jíbìng.
Parkinson's disease is a neurological illness.

Tips

usage
alone is rare. It appears in 手帕 (handkerchief) and in transliterations like 帕金森 (Parkinson).

Components

radical
jīn
cloth; towel
Left cloth radical (Kangxi #50) — the indexing radical and the meaning anchor. A (handkerchief) is by definition a small piece of cloth, so directly supplies the semantics. Same cloth-family: cloth, hat, curtain, canopy, belt — all things made of fabric.
phonetic
bái
white
Right side supplies the sound — bái → pà, drifting through an Old Chinese b/p alternation that pairs many -phonetic chars in voiced/voiceless sets. A faint semantic hint too: handkerchiefs are stereotypically white. Same phonetic series: pāi (clap), pà (fear), bó (uncle), bó (moor), pò (amber).

Stroke Order