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吓

嚇
xià / hè
verb HSK 6 #910

Meanings

  1. 1 to frighten
  2. 2 to scare

Examples

HSK 3
你吓了我一跳！
Nǐ xià le wǒ yí tiào!
You scared the heck out of me!
HSK 4
这个消息把他吓坏了。
Zhège xiāoxi bǎ tā xià huài le.
This news scared him to death.
HSK 5
那场交通事故差点吓死他。
Nà chǎng jiāotōng shìgù chàdiǎn xià sǐ tā.
That traffic accident nearly scared him to death.

Tips

usage
吓了一跳 (scared into a jump) is the most common collocation. 吓坏了 means scared stiff or scared to death.
grammar
Read xià when it's the everyday verb 'to scare' (the spoken, colloquial sense). Switch to hè in formal compounds about intimidation - 恐吓, 恫吓, 威吓 - and as the literary interjection of disapproval or astonishment.

Components

radical
口 kǒu
mouth
Left mouth - the indexing radical. Anchors 吓 as something done with the voice: a sudden shout to startle someone. From that vocal jolt came the modern senses to scare and to threaten. Same vocal family as 叫, 喊, 吼.
phonetic
下 xià
down; below
Right 下 supplies the sound for the xià reading. The down-arrow shape also adds a faint semantic hook: a startled person ducks down or sinks. Same phonetic in 虾. For the hè reading (恐吓, 威吓), the sound link has drifted - the traditional form 嚇 took its phonetic from 赫 instead.

Stroke Order

吓 xià