ě / è /
adjective #2,888

Meanings

  1. 1 nauseous; nauseating (used in 恶心)
  2. 2 disgusting; sickening

Examples

Chuán huàng de wǒ ěxīn.
I feel nauseous from the boat's rocking.
Bié gùyì ěxīn rén.
Don't deliberately try to make people uncomfortable.

Tips

register
The ě reading is bound to one compound: 恶心 (nauseous; disgusting; to deliberately gross someone out). Note that the very same compound 恶心 read with è means 'bad habit / vice' — a rare and literary sense. Modern speech almost always intends ě / nausea.

Components

radical
xīn
heart; mind
Bottom heart radical — the indexing component. Marks as a mental or moral quality: hatred, evil, vice. Same heart-base anchors (anger), (think), (forget), (urgent). The reading è = evil; reading wù = to hate; reading ě = nauseating.
phonetic
second; inferior (here phonetic)
Top supplies the sound — yà drifted to è with initial loss. itself depicts a tomb shaft or building foundation, traditionally read as 'second-rank, lesser'. The faint semantic echo of 'lesser' reinforces the 'bad, evil' reading è. Same phonetic in (mute), (crow).

Stroke Order

ě