趴 (pā) · to lie face down, to lean over

Meanings

1 to lie face down
2 to lean over

Characters

趴

pā

to lie face down; to lean over

Examples

HSK 2

他趴在桌子上睡着了。

Tā pā zài zhuōzi shàng shuìzháo le.

He fell asleep lying face down on the table.

HSK 2

孩子趴在地上画画。

Háizi pā zài dìshàng huàhuà.

The child lay on the ground drawing.

Tips

usage

趴 specifically means lying prone (face down). Compare with 躺 (tǎng) which means lying on one's back (face up).

Components

radical

足 zú

foot; leg

Foot radical on the left - indexing 趴 in the body-position family alongside 跪 kneel, 跑 run, 跳 jump, 蹲 squat, 踢 kick. Although lying face-down doesn't seem foot-centric, 足 generalises here to 'whole-body posture' and groups 趴 with the other physical-stance verbs.

phonetic

八 bā

eight (here phonetic)

八 supplies the sound - bā → pā with a modest aspiration shift. The 'eight' meaning is irrelevant; 趴 is a relatively recent Ming-era coinage and chose 八 purely for its compact two-stroke phonetic value. Same bā/pā phonetic in 扒 (scrape), 叭 (trumpet sound), 吧 (modal particle).