腾
téng · HSK 7
gallop
🐎 hides 马 (horse) → a horse that gallops, prances, and soars
The traditional form 騰 pairs 馬 (horse) with the phonetic 朕. The horse component drives every sense: galloping, prancing, soaring upward. Sound téng also rhymes with 疼 (téng, ache).
腾 — horse 馬 + phonetic 朕
腾 (traditional 騰) is a semantic-phonetic compound: the horse radical 馬 gives the meaning, while 朕 supplies the sound. It originally depicted a horse galloping or leaping upward, and the meaning broadened to 'soar,' 'gallop,' 'rise,' or 'surge,' as in 腾飞 (soar) and 沸腾 (boil over).