霸 (bà): hegemon

Meanings

1 hegemon
2 tyrant
3 overlord
4 to dominate
5 to rule by force

Characters

霸

bà

hegemon; tyrant; to dominate

Examples

HSK 2

学霸又考了第一名。

Xuébà yòu kǎo le dìyī míng.

The study whiz got first place again.

HSK 5

他是这一带的地头霸。

Tā shì zhè yídài de dìtóu bà.

He's the local bully around here.

Tips

usage

霸 is widely used as a suffix in modern slang: 学霸 (study genius), 麦霸 (mic hog at karaoke), 路霸 (road bully). It implies dominating something.

Components

radical

雨 yǔ

rain

Top rain radical - pictograph of clouds with drops falling from a flat sky-ceiling. The indexing radical. 霸 originally described the dim moonlight after fresh rain - the radical preserves the weather scene long after the meaning shifted to 'overlord, hegemon, dominate.' Same rain-family: 雪 snow, 雷 thunder, 露 dew, 霜 frost.

semantic

革 gé

hide; leather

Bottom-left 革 - pictograph of an animal hide stretched and dried, here a semantic component. In the original 'moonlight on tanned leather' image the hide provides the pale reflecting surface; that picture also gave the modern phonetic value bà via the older reading pò 'whitish moonlight'. Same component appears in 鞋 shoe, 鞭 whip - leather things.

semantic

月 yuè

moon

Bottom-right 月 - pictograph of a crescent moon (the literal moon, distinct from the look-alike ⺼ meat radical). Carries the original meaning of 霸: the new moon, the faint white light after rain washes the sky clear. From that pale image came 'to dominate the night,' giving modern senses (霸权, 霸主).