被告
bèigào · HSK 6
accused
⚖️ 被 (passive marker) + 告 (accuse) = the one being accused
被 marks the passive voice in Chinese (the receiver of an action), and 告 means to accuse or report. Together they literally mean the one who is accused — hence defendant, respondent, or the accused party in a lawsuit.
被 — clothes radical 衤 + 皮 (skin/hide)
Originally a semantic-phonetic compound: 衤 (clothing) gives the meaning 'blanket/quilt', while 皮 supplies the sound. From 'covering' it extended to 'cover oneself with', then grammaticalized into the passive marker 'by', its most common modern use.
告 — ox 牛 (top) + mouth 口
Originally a pictograph showing an ox with something on its head, possibly a yoke or sacrificial marker, combined with 口 (mouth) to suggest announcing or reporting. The character came to mean 'to tell' or 'to announce,' as in making a formal declaration. Today it commonly appears in words like 告诉 (to tell) and 报告 (report).