TongTong
Sign in

飞贼 (fēi zéi) — (noun) cat burglar; burglar who gains entry by scaling walls; (noun) enemy airman or aircraft; air raider (historical/wartime)

Definition

A compound noun with two historical senses: a 'cat burglar' (thief who scales walls), and, in wartime usage, an 'enemy air raider' (plane or airman attacking from the sky). 飞 here flips meaning by context — climbing vs flying.

noun
cat burglarburglar who gains entry by scaling wallsenemy airman or aircraftair raider (historical/wartime)
Measure word · 个

Examples

  • 飞贼。
    Jǐng chá zhōng yú zhuā zhù le nà ge fēi zéi.
    The police finally caught that cat burglar.
  • ，飞贼。
    Kàng zhàn shí qī, dí rén de fēi zéi cháng lái hōng zhà chéng shì.
    During the War of Resistance, enemy air raiders often came to bomb the cities.
  • 飞贼，。
    Tā xiàng yì zhī fēi zéi, qīng qīng yí yuè jiù fān guò le gāo qiáng.
    He was like a cat burglar — with one light leap he vaulted over the high wall.

Origin

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.

飞fēifly
贼zéithief

飞 suggests swift movement and 贼 means thief, so together they picture a thief who climbs or moves fast.

Characters in this word

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

This origin belongs to the traditional form 飛; 飞 is its simplified writing.

For 飞, the traditional form 飛 pictures a bird flying upwards.

Open 飞 →

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 賊; 贼 is its simplified writing.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
戈戈gēweapon
Sound part声符shēngfú
則
則zé賊zéi
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

The traditional 賊 combines 戈, a weapon, with 則 to give the pronunciation; the simplified 贼 is a later shorthand and its parts are not the historical components.

Open 贼 →
Appears in
Crime & Police

Browse more HSK 7-9 words or search the full 43,000-word dictionary.