焦急
jiāo jí · HSK 7
anxiety
🔥 焦 = scorched/burnt + 急 = urgent/impatient: burnt-up urgency, the heat of anxiety
焦 jiāo carries the fire radical and means scorched or burnt; 急 jí means urgent or impatient. Together: a mind so rushed it feels singed. The jiāo jí sound starts hard and clipped, matching the clenched feeling of being anxious.
焦 — bird 隹 over fire 灬
焦 is an associative compound showing a short-tailed bird (隹) above fire (灬), depicting roasting a bird until scorched. The original sense was 'burnt' or 'charred,' which extended to 'scorched, dried out,' and metaphorically to 'anxious, worried' (as in 焦急).
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.'