noun #15,710

Meanings

  1. 1 disease; illness; ailment
  2. 2 swift; rapid
  3. 3 to hate; to envy

Examples

HSK 3
Yùfáng jíbìng hěn zhòngyào.
Preventing disease is very important.
HSK 7-9
疾风劲草
Jífēng zhī jìngcǎo.
Strong winds reveal sturdy grass. (Adversity tests character.)

Tips

usage
疾病 = disease, 残疾 = disability, 疾驰 = to gallop. Note the radical for illness.

Components

radical
sickness; illness (radical)
Sickness radical - a person lying on a bed pushed onto its side. The indexing radical, putting in the disease family alongside illness, pain, epidemic. All diseases live inside this leaning-bed frame.
semantic
shǐ
arrow
Inside - pictograph of an arrow with feathered tail. Combined with the sickness frame it gives the original meaning "wound from an arrow" - an acute, sudden injury. From there came both "rapid, swift" (疾走 run fast, 疾驰 speed) and "disease, ailment" (疾病).

Stroke Order