胖 (pán) · at ease; contented

Meanings

1 at ease; contented
2 healthy and serene

Characters

胖

pán

at ease; contented

Examples

HSK 7-9

心宽体胖，退休后他整个人都舒展了。

Xīnkuāntǐpán, tuìxiū hòu tā zhěnggè rén dōu shūzhǎn le.

Heart at ease, body at peace - after retirement his whole bearing relaxed.

HSK 7-9

古人说「心广体胖」，意思是心胸宽阔的人身体自然舒泰。

Gǔrén shuō " xīnguǎngtǐpán ", yìsi shì xīnxiōng kuānkuò de rén shēntǐ zìrán shūtài.

The ancients said "broad heart, body at ease" - meaning a person of broad mind is naturally at ease in body.

Tips

register

Literary / classical reading. In modern Mandarin 胖 survives only in the fixed chengyu 心宽体胖 (also written 心广体胖), where it means "body at ease" rather than "fat" - a contented, well-fleshed serenity, not obesity. The phrase traces to the 大学 (Great Learning), one of the Confucian Four Books: wealth enriches the house, virtue enriches the person, a broad heart enriches the body.

mistakes

Reading 心宽体胖 as xīnkuāntǐpàng is the single most common mistake - it sounds like "big-hearted and fat" rather than the intended "broad-minded and at ease." The classical pán reading is the only correct one here.

Components

radical

⺼ ròu

flesh; meat (left-form)

Left flesh radical, the side-form of 肉. Drawn as a small grid of folded meat, it marks 胖 as a body-and-flesh word: the body padded with extra meat. The radical anchors a huge body-part family - 肩, 腿, 肝, 脸, 肚 - and broadly any vocabulary describing the meat of a body.

phonetic

半 bàn

half

Right 半 supplies the sound - bàn shifted to pàng, with regular Old Chinese labial alternation between b- and p-. 半 itself depicts an ox split in two (eight-stroke ox 牛 cut by 八 "split"), but that "half" meaning is incidental here, read mainly for sound. Same phonetic series includes 伴 (companion), 拌 (mix), 绊 (trip up).