0085 恐

恐

This character means ‘fear, terrible.’ It’s pronounced KYŌ, osoreru, osoroshii, or kowai in Japanese, and it’s kǒng in Chinese.

The lower figure,

心,

means ‘heart, mind, soul,’ which are the parts of a person which become afraid or terrified.

The upper figure,

巩,

is just there as a phonetic clue, however. It means ‘bind, firm, secure, strong, which doesn’t provide much help in remembering the meaning of today’s character...unless we can remember both, with a little story about a heart being bound, i.e., constricted by fear. The upper left portion,

工,

means ‘work, labor,’ and is pronounced gōng in Chinese, by the way. It’s the ‘gong’ in ‘qigong,’ which means ‘qi work’ or, loosely, ‘energy work.’ It looks like the end view of an I-beam to me, and I find it easy to associate that with work and labor...and perhaps even with fear, since I’d be afraid to find myself standing high in a building under construction on an I-beam.

凡,

in the upper right, means ‘mediocre, common, ordinary,’ and what could be more terrifying than being trapped at work, 工, with mediocre colleagues?