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整人 (zhěng rén) — to prank someone, to mess with someone, to make someone suffer (often playfully or vengefully)

Definition

整人 (zhěng rén) means to deliberately mess with or prank someone, often as a joke or to get back at them. It's more active and intentional than 开玩笑, which just means 'to joke' without the sense of targeting or scheming.

verb
to prank someoneto mess with someoneto make someone suffer (often playfully or vengefully)

Examples

  • 整人，。
    Tā lǎo xǐ huan zhěng rén, dà jiā dōu yǒu diǎn pà tā.
    He always likes to mess with people, everyone is a bit afraid of him.
  • 。
    Zuó tiān tā bèi zhěng dé hěn cǎn.
    He was pranked really badly yesterday.
  • ，。
    Zhè cì wán xiào kāi dà le, tā zhěng le wǒ yì huí.
    This joke went too far; he played a trick on me once.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
动宾dòngbīnVerb + object

An action followed by what it acts on, fused into one word.

整zhěngmess with/make suffer
人rénperson

整 here means to mess with or make suffer, and 人 means person, so the word means to make someone suffer.

Characters in this word

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

Meaning part形符xíngfú
敕敕chì
Sound part声符shēngfú
正
正zhèng整zhěng
Same sound today

整 pairs 敕 as the meaning side with 正 as the sound side.

Open 整 →

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

The shape of 人 shows a side view of a standing person, with an arm and a leg.

Open 人 →
Appears in
Conflict & Agreement

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