verb #13,976

Meanings

  1. 1 to fear
  2. 2 to be afraid of

Examples

HSK 5
Tā xīnzhōng chōngmǎn le kǒngjù.
His heart was filled with fear.
HSK 7-9
Wúsuǒwèijù de zhànshì chōng shàng le qiánxiàn.
The fearless soldiers charged to the front line.

Tips

usage
is literary and rarely used alone in modern speech. It appears in compounds: 恐惧 (kǒngjù, terror), 畏惧 (wèijù, dread), 无所畏惧 (wúsuǒwèijù, fearless).

Components

radical
xīn
heart (radical form of 心)
Left-side heart radical - the indexing radical, side-form of . Files in the family of emotion verbs: fear, hate, 怀 cherish, worry, regret. Marks fear as an inner state of the heart, exactly how classical Chinese psychology categorized strong feelings.
phonetic
tool; possess
Right supplies the sound - jù exactly, no shift. Originally depicted hands offering a cooking vessel - to furnish or possess. Pure phonetic role in ; the 'tool' meaning contributes little semantically. Same phonetic family: all, hurricane. The simplified replaces the bulkier traditional (with the watchful-eye phonetic on the right).

Stroke Order