死亡
sǐwáng · HSK 6
to die; death
💀🦢 sǐwáng echoes swan — as in swan song, the final act
死 means die, 亡 means perish. Together they double down on death. The swan song pun locks in the sound: a swan song is the last thing you do before the end.
死 — 歹 (bare bones) + 匕 (kneeling person)
Originally a pictograph showing a living person (匕) beside skeletal remains (歹), depicting someone mourning or kneeling next to a corpse. The combination came to mean 'death' or 'to die.' The 歹 component, derived from a bone fragment, signals the death-related meaning across many related characters.