应急
yìng jí · HSK 6
emergency
🚨 应 respond + 急 urgent = respond to urgency
应 means to respond or answer; 急 means urgent or anxious. Together they form the concept of responding to something urgent — an emergency response. The yìng jí sound echoes the sharp, clipped tone of an alarm bell ringing.
应 — 广 (shelter) + 心 (heart) + 隹 (bird)
Originally written 應, this character combined a phonetic component with 心 (heart) to suggest 'responding from the heart' or 'answering a call'. The simplified form 应 keeps the top portion. Over time it broadened from 'respond/answer' to also mean 'should' or 'ought to'.
急 — heart radical 心 + 及 (reach)
A semantic-phonetic compound: the heart radical 心 supplies the meaning (an emotional state) while 及 ('to reach, catch up') gives the sound. Originally it depicted a racing, anxious heart — hence the modern senses 'urgent,' 'hurried,' and 'impatient.'