狭窄
xiázhǎi · HSK 7
narrow
🚪 狭 = clamp 夹 squeezing the sides in; 窄 = a cave 穴 roof pressing down = narrow, cramped
Both halves stack the same idea: 夹 is two things pinching a middle, and 穴 is a tight cave opening. Together xiázhǎi is space squeezed from the sides and the top — a cramped bottleneck.
窄 — cave radical 穴 + measure 乍
窄 combines 穴 (cave/hole) as the semantic component with 乍 as the phonetic, suggesting a tight, narrow opening like a cramped cave. The original sense of a confined space extended naturally to mean 'narrow' or 'tight' in both physical and figurative uses.