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多心 (duō xīn) — to be oversensitive, to be suspicious (often in 别多心 or 你多心了)

Definition

多心 (duō xīn) means to read too much into things — to overthink others' words and get suspicious or hurt. Unlike 可疑/蹊跷, which describe an objective situation being odd, 多心 is about the subject's own oversensitive reaction.

verb
to be oversensitiveto be suspicious (often in 别多心 or 你多心了)

Examples

  • 多心，。
    Tā zhè ge rén jiù shì róng yì duō xīn, nǐ bié zài yì.
    He's the type who gets oversensitive easily; don't mind him.
  • ，多心。
    Wǒ zhè me shuō méi yǒu pī píng nǐ de yì si, nǐ bié duō xīn.
    I'm not criticizing you by saying that — don't take it the wrong way.
  • 多心，。
    Tā duō xīn le, yǐ wéi dà jiā zài shuō tā huài huà.
    She got suspicious, thinking everyone was gossiping about her.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
动宾dòngbīnVerb + object

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

多duōhave many
心xīnheart

To have 多, or many, in the 心 is to be oversensitive or suspicious.

Characters in this word

Two or more meaningful parts placed together so that their meanings combine into a new one.

多 originally showed two pieces of meat placed together; the repeated meat shape gives the sense of many.

Open 多 →

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

The shape of 心 comes from a drawing of a heart, now highly stylized.

Open 心 →
Appears in
HSK 3.0 Level 7-9

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