追赶
zhuī gǎn · HSK 7
to pursue
🏃 追 chase + 赶 hurry = chase after and catch up
追 (zhuī) is to chase or pursue; 赶 (gǎn) is to hurry or drive forward. Stack them and the verbs reinforce each other: chasing while hurrying, which is exactly catching up with someone ahead.
追 — 辶 (walk) + 𠂤 (small mound/heap)
Originally a semantic-phonetic compound: 辶 ('walk/movement') gives the meaning of going after something, while 𠂤 supplied the ancient sound. Early bronze inscriptions show it meaning to chase or pursue an enemy. The modern senses — 'pursue,' 'chase after,' 'retroactively' — all extend from this original idea of following in motion.
赶 — walk radical 走 + 旱 (gan, phonetic)
赶 combines 走 'to walk/run' as the meaning component with 旱 as the phonetic clue for the sound gǎn. The walking radical points to its core meanings: to hurry, to chase, or to drive (animals) along. The simplified form replaced the older 趕, which used 倝 as phonetic.