大祸 (dà huò) — great disaster, catastrophe

Definition

noun

great disastercatastrophe

大祸。
Tā chuǎng xià le dà huò.
He caused a great disaster.
大祸。
Zhè cì shì gù zhēn shì yì chǎng dà huò.
This accident was really a catastrophe.
，大祸。
Rú guǒ chǔ lǐ bù hǎo, jiù huì zhāo lái dà huò.
If not handled well, it will bring disaster.

Compound word

构词法gòucífǎ

偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

祸huòdisaster

大 means great, and 祸 means disaster, giving a great disaster.

Characters in this word

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

The form 大 is a picture of a person standing and facing forward, not of someone stretching their arms.

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 禍; 祸 is its simplified writing.

Meaning part形符xíngfú

示示shìsacrifice

Sound part声符shēngfú

咼

咼wāi禍huò

Close in sound todayThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

The simplified 祸 is an abbreviation of traditional 禍, which pairs 示 (sacrifice) with 咼 to show pronunciation.

Appears in