In Mandarin Chinese, 飞 (Pinyin: fēi 🔊) is a word of many meanings. As a verb, it means “to fly”, “to flutter”, or “to evaporate”. It also could be an adjective for “fast”, “unexpected”, “unfounded”, or an adverb “very” or “extremely”.
飞 is a simplified form of the traditional hanzi 飛. If you look carefully, you’ll see that the traditional character contains two 飞 bits, one on top of the other. Uncle Hanzi writes “a flying bird with long neck and big wings” without specifying explicitly whether he refers to 飛 or 飞. I see a long neck (and a long beak) and not-so-big wings in the simplified character.
Some compounds of 飞 include
- 飞 + 天 = 飞天 (fēitiān): to fly in the sky; to travel into space
- 飞 + 星 = 飞星 (fēixīng): meteor; shooting star
- 飞 + 鸟 = 飞鸟 (fēiniǎo): flying bird
- 飞 + 鱼 = 飞鱼 (fēiyú): flying fish
- 飞 + 鼠 = 飞鼠 (fēishǔ): flying squirrel; bat
- 飞 + 虫 = 飞虫 (fēichóng): flying insect
In Japanese, 飛 is an affix that confers the meaning of flight or speed. We’ve already seen 飛 in that famous haiku:
古池や 芭蕉
Furu ike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto The old pond; Bashō
(Translated by R.H. Blyth) |
Here, the frog 蛙 (kawazu) not just enters こむ (komu) the water: it leaps in 飛こむ (tobikomu).
More photos related to flight, calligraphy and sea glass @ Shutterstock.
