破碎
pò suì · HSK 7
to smash to pieces
💔🧩 破 = break/damaged + 碎 = fragments; together break-into-fragments = shatter
破 means broken or damaged; 碎 means broken bits or fragments. Stack the two break-words and you get the intensified break-it-into-fragments sense: smash to pieces, shatter.
破 — stone 石 + skin/hide 皮
破 is a semantic-phonetic compound: 石 (stone) gives the meaning 'to break, smash,' since stones were used to crack things, while 皮 (pí) supplies the sound. The original sense of breaking stone broadened to mean 'broken,' 'damaged,' or 'to defeat.'
碎 — stone radical 石 + 卒 (zú, phonetic)
碎 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The stone radical 石 carries the meaning, suggesting things being broken into small pieces like crushed stone. The right side 卒 (zú) provides the phonetic clue to its pronunciation suì, meaning 'to shatter' or 'fragmentary'.