害怕
hàipà · HSK 3
be afraid/scared
😱 害 (harm) + 怕 (fear) = harmed-by-fear, i.e. dread
害 means harm/calamity; 怕 is the verb 'to fear' (heart radical 忄+ 白 bái for sound). Together they form a compound meaning to be afraid or frightened by potential harm.
害 — 宀 roof + 丯 (phonetic) + 口 mouth
Originally an ideograph showing harm spoken under a roof, with 宀 (roof/house) on top, a phonetic element 丯 in the middle, and 口 (mouth) below suggesting harmful speech. Over time it shifted from 'injury caused by words' to the broader senses of 'harm,' 'injure,' and 'fear.'
怕 — heart radical 忄 + white 白
A semantic-phonetic compound. The heart radical 忄 signals an emotion, while 白 (bái) supplies the sound, which shifted over time to pà. The combination came to mean 'fear'—a feeling in the heart—though 白 contributes only phonetically, not by meaning.