患病
huàn bìng · HSK 7
to fall ill
🤒 患病 = 患 contract/suffer + 病 illness; the 病 part is the disease radical itself
病 means sickness or disease, and 患 carries the sense of suffering or contracting something bad. Put together, 患病 is the verb to contract a disease, i.e. to fall ill.
患 — 串 chuàn (phonetic) + 心 heart
A semantic-phonetic compound: 心 'heart/mind' gives the meaning of inner worry, while 串 'string/skewer' suggests the sound. The original sense was anxiety or troubles weighing on the mind, which later extended to 'suffer from' an illness or calamity.
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.'