骗
piàn · HSK 5
to cheat; to swindle
🎭 骗 = 马 (horse) + 扁 (flat) — flatten with a horse-trader's con
扁 (flat/biǎn) is the phonetic and hints at flattening the truth. The 马 radical points to horse-trading, the classic context for swindling buyers. So 骗 piàn = to cheat or deceive.
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'.