(bìng): illness

(bìng) is a Chinese character meaning “illness.” Classified as HSK Level 1 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (semantic) and (phonetic). It ranks #427 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, sickness. Its radical form (illness) appears in many related characters such as (, medicine), (téng, ache), (tòng, pain).

Native pronunciation

Definitions

  1. illness

Etymology & Origin

pictophoneticsickness

Decomposition: ⿸疒丙 (layout: surround-from-upper-left)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Practice writing with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
nounbìng rénsick person3
nounbìng dúvirus6
nounmáo bìngfault5
verbshēng bìngto fall ill1
nounjí bìngdisease5
nounbìng qíngstate of an illness5
nounbìng fángward (of a hospital)5
verbkàn bìngto visit a doctor1
nounchuán rǎn bìnginfectious disease6
verbfā bìng(of an illness) to occur6

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
bìng lì(medical) case
bìng lìmedical record
bìng tàimorbid or abnormal state
bìng jiàsick leave
bìng zhèngdisease
bìng jūnharmful bacteria
bìng shǐmedical history
dé bìngto fall ill
bìng chuánghospital bed
bìng yīncause of disease
lìn bìnggonorrhea
bìng tòngslight illness
bìng dǎoto fall ill
huàn bìngto fall ill
bìng móserious illness
100
Total compounds
59
As first character
41
As last character
0
As middle character

appears in 100 compound words: 59 as the first character, 41 as the last, and 0 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Strongest Collocations

Characters that most frequently co-occur with in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

0.743196,712 co-occurrences
0.724256,064 co-occurrences
zhěn
0.715127,596 co-occurrences
0.635281,190 co-occurrences
què
0.619124,920 co-occurrences
huàn
0.61493,189 co-occurrences
shì
0.612116,286 co-occurrences
màn
0.59814 co-occurrences
0.56624,732 co-occurrences
尿niào
0.56221,587 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (18)

bāozhìbǎibìngHSK 5+

guaranteed to cure all illnesses; cure-all; bags can cure all unhappiness

phrase
bìngbing-wāiwāiHSK 6+

sickly-looking

adjective
bìngbing-yāngyāngHSK 7+

looking or feeling sickly

adjective
bìngcóngkǒurùHSK 4+

illness enters from the mouth

phrase
bìng dú gǎn rǎnHSK 6+

viral infection

phrase
bìng guó yāng mínHSK 7+

to damage the country and cause suffering to the people (idiom)

phrase
bìng mín hài guóHSK 4+

to damage the people and harm the country (idiom)

phrase
bìngtài féipàngHSK 5+

morbidly obese

adjective
duō chóu duō bìngHSK 6+

much sorrows and illness (idiom); melancholy and weakly

phrase
jiǔbìngchéngyīHSK 3+

experience is the best teacher

phrase
pín bìng jiāo pòHSK 6+

beset by poverty and illness (idiom)

phrase
sàngxīnbìngkuángHSK 6+

frenzied; crazy; ridiculous

phrase

Showing 12 of 18 idioms containing .

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他生了,需要请假休息几天。

Tā shēngbìng le, xūyào qǐngjià xiūxi jǐ tiān.

He is sick and needs to take a few days off to rest.

東方日報Feb 2026

釣魚逾60年皮膚曬成朱古力色 老翁

釣 魚 yú nián pí 膚 曬 chéng zhū gǔ lì sè lǎo wēng bìng shì

After over 60 years of fishing, his skin tanned to a chocolate brown. The elderly man passed away.

Hk01.comFeb 2026

...蘭?特朗普宣布派遣醫療船赴當地「協助很多人」

. . . 蘭 ? tè lǎng pǔ xuān bù pài qiǎn 醫 療 chuán fù 當 dì 協 zhù hěn duō bìng rén

Trump announced the dispatch of a medical ship to the area to "assist many patients."

TvbsFeb 2026

陳光復最新況!家屬曝「睜眼、對聲音有反應」 昏迷指...

陳 guāng 復 zuì xīn bìng 況 ! jiā 屬 pù 睜 yǎn 對 聲 yīn yǒu fǎn 應 hūn mí zhǐ . . .

Chen Guangfu's latest condition! Family reveals "eyes open, reacts to sounds" Coma indicates…

東森新聞Feb 2026

收假別鬆懈慎防諾羅、腸毒、B流 防疫重點一次看

shōu jiǎ 別 鬆 xiè shèn fáng 諾 羅 腸 bìng dú liú fáng yì chóng 點 yī cì kàn

Don't let your guard down after the holidays—stay vigilant against norovirus, enterovirus, and influenza B. Key prevention measures at a glance.

東方日報Feb 2026

瀋陽鑄造研究所前黨委書記徐人瑞逝 享年86歲

瀋 陽 鑄 zào yán jiū suǒ qián 黨 wěi 書 記 xú rén ruì bìng shì xiǎng nián 歲

Xu Renrui, Former Party Secretary of Shenyang Foundry Research Institute, Passes Away at Age 86

StheadlineFeb 2026

...出彈入否認健康亮紅燈 官方昨稱退團專心養

. . . chū 彈 rù fǒu 認 jiàn kāng liàng 紅 燈 guān fāng zuó 稱 tuì 團 專 xīn 養 bìng

...Denies health concerns amid rumors of withdrawal Officials stated yesterday that he left the group to focus on recuperation

工商時報Feb 2026

聲稱幫助患 川普:將向格陵蘭島派遣醫療船

聲 稱 幫 zhù bìng huàn chuān pǔ 將 xiàng gé líng 蘭 島 pài qiǎn 醫 療 chuán

Claiming to help patients, Trump: Will send medical ship to Greenland

Tatoeba

你曾经得过重吗?

Nǐ céngjīng dé guo zhòng bìng ma?

Have you ever had any serious illness?

Tatoeba

你看起来不太舒服。是生了吗?

Nǐ kànqǐlai bù tài shūfu. shì shēngbìng le ma?

You don't seem to be comfortable. Are you ill?

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced bìng

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 病 (bìng) mean in Chinese?
病 (bìng) primarily means "illness." It is classified as HSK Level 1, making it a beginner-level character. It ranks #427 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 病 have?
病 is written with 10 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 病?
The radical associated with 病 is 疒 (illness). This radical appears in many characters related to illness.
What are the components of 病?
病 is composed of: 疒 (semantic), 丙 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿸疒丙 with a surround-from-upper-left layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 病?
Common words with 病 include: 病人 (bìng rén, "sick person"); 病毒 (bìng dú, "virus"); 毛病 (máo bìng, "fault"); 生病 (shēng bìng, "to fall ill"); 疾病 (jí bìng, "disease"). There are over 100 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 病 (bìng)?
Several characters share the pronunciation bìng: 柄 (handle or shaft (of an axe etc)), 冰 (ice), 兵 (soldiers), 丙 (third of the ten Heavenly Stems 十天干), and 4 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 病 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 病 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear native pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.