臂 (bì): arm

Measure Word

一条臂 tiáo

Meanings

1 arm
2 upper arm

Characters

臂

bì

arm

Examples

他的手臂受伤了。

Tā de shǒubì shòushāng le.

His arm was injured.

她张开双臂拥抱了他。

Tā zhāngkāi shuāngbì yōngbào le tā.

She opened her arms and hugged him.

警察一把抓住了他的胳臂。

Jǐngchá yībǎ zhuāzhù le tā de gēbì.

The police officer grabbed his arm.

Tips

usage

臂 on its own is literary. In everyday speech, 手臂 (shǒubì) or 胳膊 (gēbo) is more common for 'arm.' 臂 appears in compounds like 臂膀 (shoulder/arm) and 一臂之力 (a helping hand).

Components

radical

⺼ ròu

meat; flesh (radical form)

Bottom meat-flesh radical — side-form of 肉 (looks like 月 moon, distinct unicode glyph). As the indexing radical it carries the meaning: an arm is part of the body. Same radical groups 臂 with body-part chars 腿 leg, 脚 foot, 胸 chest, 背 back, 肩 shoulder.

phonetic

辟 bì

to open up; to ward off (here phonetic)

Top 辟 supplies the sound — bì read identically through to the parent. Same phonetic frames a tight cluster: 壁 wall, 避 to avoid, 璧 jade disc, 譬 to compare, all sharing the bì/pì reading. Borrowed purely for pronunciation, with no semantic contribution to the arm meaning.