心脏病
xīn zàng bìng · HSK 6
disease
🫀🤒 xin zang bing = heart + organ + illness — the sick organ is your heart
Each character builds the diagnosis: 心 (xīn) is heart, 脏 (zàng) means internal organ, 病 (bìng) means disease. Stack them up: heart-organ-disease, a literal medical compound.
心 — pictograph of a heart with chambers and aorta
心 is a pictograph showing a stylized heart, with strokes representing the organ's chambers and the aorta at the top. Originally meaning the physical heart, it broadened to cover mind, feelings, and intentions, since ancient Chinese thought located thinking and emotion in the heart.
脏 — flesh radical 月 + 葬 (burial, phonetic)
脏 is the simplified form of two distinct traditional characters. As 髒 it means 'dirty,' with 骨 (bone) hinting at decay; as 臟 it means 'internal organs,' using 月 (flesh) for the body. Modern 脏 merges both, with 葬 ('burial') serving as the phonetic component.
病 — sickness radical 疒 + 丙 (bǐng, phonetic)
病 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The radical 疒 depicts a person lying on a bed and signals illness or ailment. The component 丙 supplies the sound (bǐng → bìng). Originally 病 referred to a serious illness, contrasted with 疾 for a lighter ailment; today it broadly means 'sick' or 'disease.'