爬 emphasizes physical effort using hands or claws.

Related characters:
抓 — to grab


to grasp or pull something in order to climb

to climb, to ascend, to go up, to mount (a platform, stage, or vehicle), to register, to record

nail, claw

A phono-semantic compound consisting of:


 (claw / fingernail) — semantic component, indicates hand or claw movement;
巴 — phonetic component, supplying the sound (파 / pá), gives pronunciation.
The original sense likely referred to scratching or grasping with claws.

Semantic development:
- to scratch with claws;
- to grasp and move;
- to crawl;
- to climb.
The transition from scratching to crawling/climbing reflects the use of hands or claws to move upward.

Characters

Words

Vocabulary

Rare and archaic Chinese character

thunderous sound, repeated crashing of thunder

adult male, fourth Heavenly Stem, nail

seven, number 7, seventh

elder, man of respect, husband, head of a family

up, top, first, best

below, under, to descend, to go down

not, no, non-

world, generation, lifetime

unit, individual, single

center, middle, inside

to grasp, to hold, to seize

to string together, to pierce through, a skewer, a series or chain of things

a small round object, pellet, ball, pill

red, cinnabar-red

king, lord, master, sovereign

thus, then, only, surprisingly

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Chinese character

Explore 214 Chinese radicals and their derived characters. Sort by radical or stroke count, and view the complete list of official Hanja radicals.

Chinese characters (Hanja)

Chinese characters dictionary

爬

Etymology

Additional notes

Words that derived from 爬

Neighboring characters in the dictionary