诈骗
zhà piàn · HSK 7
to defraud
🎭💰 诈 cheat + 骗 swindle = two deceive-words doubled up for a full-blown scam
Both 诈 (zhà) and 骗 (piàn) separately mean to deceive; stacking the synonyms intensifies it into organized fraud or blackmail. The 讠/言 speech radical on each marks deception done with words — a con told, not a thing stolen.
骗 — horse radical 馬 + flat 扁 (phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The horse radical 馬 hints at the original sense of mounting a horse sideways or leaping onto it deceptively, while 扁 supplies the sound. Over time the meaning shifted from this sneaky riding motion to the broader sense of 'cheat' or 'deceive'.