生怕
shēng pà · HSK 7
to fear
生 raw/sheer + 怕 fear = sheer dread, scared stiff for fear that something happens
生 (shēng) here acts as an intensifier meaning sheer or raw, and 怕 (pà) is the everyday word for afraid. Stacked together they mean dreading so hard you act to prevent something — for fear that.
生 — sprout 屮 above earth 土
Originally a pictograph showing a young plant sprouting from the ground, with 屮 (a sprout) above 土 (earth). The core meaning is 'to be born, to grow, to live,' which extends to 'raw, unripe, unfamiliar.' The modern form has simplified the sprout shape but preserves the image of new growth emerging from soil.
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.