怕
pà · HSK 2
I'm afraid
😨 怕 = 忄(heart) + 白 (bái, white) — heart goes white with fear
The 忄radical marks emotions; 白 (white) hints at the pronunciation pà and doubles as a mnemonic: a face goes white when afraid. Use 怕 for fear, dread, or hedged 'I'm afraid that…' statements.
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.