téng
adjective HSK 2 #1,177

Meanings

  1. 1 painful; sore
  2. 2 to love dearly; to dote on

Examples

Wǒ tóu téng.
I have a headache.
Nǐ nǎlǐ téng?
Where does it hurt?
Nǎinai hěn téng wǒ.
Grandma loves me dearly.

Tips

usage
has two very different uses: physical pain (头疼, headache) and deep affection (妈妈孩子, a mother dotes on her child). The affection meaning implies a tender, protective love — typically from elders to younger ones.
mistakes
vs : both mean 'pain', but is more colloquial and also means 'to love dearly.' is stronger, more formal, and doesn't have the affection meaning.

Components

radical
sickness; ailment
Sickness radical wraps the top-left — a person leaning on a sickbed. It marks in the bodily-suffering family with pain, illness, mad, weary. The radical sets the emotional register too: ache and tenderness are intertwined here, hence the second sense 'to dote on, to love deeply' (loving someone the way an ache claims attention).
phonetic
dōng
winter (here phonetic)
Right side is 'winter', supplying the sound — dōng drifting to téng with regular d/t alternation. Same phonetic core in end and boom. A wintry image fits the dull, cold ache of bodily pain — the throb of 头疼 a headache, the chill of 牙疼 a toothache, the long ache of caring for someone you .

Stroke Order

téng