臂 (bì) · arm, upper arm

Measure Word

一条臂 tiáo

Meanings

1 arm
2 upper arm

Characters

臂

bì

arm

Examples

HSK 4

他的手臂受伤了。

Tā de shǒubì shòushāng le.

His arm was injured.

HSK 5

她张开双臂拥抱了他。

Tā zhāngkāi shuāngbì yōngbào le tā.

She opened her arms and hugged him.

HSK 7-9

警察一把抓住了他的胳臂。

Jǐngchá yìbǎ 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

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.