Origin

This character combines the disease radical, which looks like a roof or shelter and classifies characters related to illness, with a sound hint component that suggests the pronunciation. The sound component doesn't contribute to the meaning, but it did help speakers of ancient Chinese remember roughly how to say the character. Together, the disease classifier and sound hint create a character meaning plague or epidemic—a widespread illness affecting many people at once.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).