HSK Guide

爸 bà — father, dad (chiefly in 爸爸)

bà (fourth tone, falling)

father, dad (chiefly in 爸爸)

8 strokesRadical 父Frequency #625
Words containing 爸Character writing labAsk the AI tutor

Pinyin

  • bà (fourth tone, falling)

father, dad (chiefly in 爸爸)

Character breakdown

Ideographic description

⿱父巴The sequence reads left to right and describes how the parts are arranged.

  • 父meaning partno entry yetThe father radical: a hand gripping a stone axe.
  • 巴sound partno entry yet巴 bā for the sound; it is the same phonetic as in 把 and 吧.

Mnemonic

The father 父 sitting on top of 巴, which is there only for the sound. 爸 and 妈 were both built late and on the same plan — the family word on one side, a plain phonetic on the other — because the nursery words bàba and māma needed characters of their own. Both are doubled in speech, and both keep the tone on the first syllable only.

A memory aid written by HSK Guide editors. It is not an etymology and does not describe the historical origin of the character.

Words containing 爸