破 (pò): broken; damaged

Meanings

1 broken; damaged
2 to break; to split; to destroy
3 to expose; to break through

Characters

破

pò

broken; to break; to split

Contains 石 (stone) + 皮 (skin) — stone breaking through skin, something being broken.

Examples

杯子破了。

Bēizi pò le.

The cup is broken.

这双鞋已经穿破了。

Zhè shuāng xié yǐjīng chuān pò le.

These shoes have been worn through.

小偷破门而入。

Xiǎotōu pòmén'érrù.

The thief broke in through the door.

Tips

usage

破 can be a result complement: 打破 (break by hitting), 撕破 (tear apart), 穿破 (wear through).

grammar

破 as an adjective means 'crappy/lousy' in colloquial speech: 这破手机 'this lousy phone.'

Components

radical

石 shí

stone

Stone radical on the left — pictures a rock at the foot of a cliff (厂 + 口). It supplies the meaning here: 破 originally described stone being smashed or split. From that concrete sense came every kind of breaking: 打破 (break), 突破 (break through), 破坏 (destroy).

phonetic

皮 pí

skin; hide

皮 (pí) supplies the sound, with a tone shift to pò. It pictures a hand peeling a hide, which gives 破 a faint flavor of stripping/tearing in addition to the smashing-stone sense from 石. Same phonetic anchors 波 (wave), 坡 (slope), 披 (drape over).