Origin

This character combines the hand radical on the left with a component meaning "sit" or "be positioned" on the right. The idea is that when something is pressed down or forced into a seated position by a hand, it breaks or gets crushed. Over time, the meaning extended from physical crushing to include spraining joints or the figurative sense of being discouraged or broken in spirit. The "hand doing something to a sitting thing" concept captures the sense of something being forcefully overcome or damaged.