Chinese Character Wiki
害

hài

injure

Original meaning: 

spearhead

Pictograph of a pointed spearhead. The distinguishing mark 口 was added later. Based on the original meaning "spearhead", now written as 𥎆. The meaning later shifted to "harm" and "injure".

Components
◎ iconic component

◎  Iconic component

  

characterless component

Depicts a spearhead.

口 distinguishing component

口  Distinguishing component

kǒu

  

mouth

Evolution

害 Bronze script Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Bronze script

Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
害 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
害 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
害 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

害  

hài

injure, harm; destroy, kill; to do harm to; to cause trouble to; harm; evil; calamity

Most common words with 害
Freq.
Word
Meaning

伤害

to injure

害怕

to be afraid

厉害

ferocious

害

harm

受害者

casualty

Component uses

Meaning component in 1 character (0 verified)

瞎

Sound component in 6 characters (0 verified)

轄 辖 割 瞎 豁 嗐

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*N-kˤat-s

hajH

hài

be hurt (v.i.); injury (n.)

*m-kˤat-s

hajH

hài

hurt (v.t.)


Statistics

HSK level 5

Appears in 86.5770% of movies

298th most common character in movies

579th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

10

Unicode

U+5BB3

Shuowen

“害，傷也。从宀，从口。宀、口，言从家起也。丰聲。”
Sources

何琳儀《戰國古文字典：戰國文字聲系》p.898

林志強《《文源》評注》p.520



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