The 巴 family
巴 · bā · ㄅㄚ — Ba, a state during the Zhou dynasty (in present-day Chongqing and the eastern part of Sichuan)
Know 巴 and the readings of 8 more characters follow: 吧、把、爸、笆、爬、芭、耙、疤. In traditional Chinese, most characters carry a sound component — a phonetic — and learning the phonetic once lights up its whole family. This page is that family, drawn live from the map.
The characters
One sound, many meanings: the 部首 beside each character is the other half of the pair, the part that tells them apart.
- 吧ba · ˙ㄅㄚ部首 口 · mouthsuggestion particle (走吧! "let's go"); bar84%
- 把bǎ · ㄅㄚˇ部首 扌 提手旁 · handto hold; handle; (object marker: 把門關上 "close the door")84%
- 爸bà · ㄅㄚˋ部首 父 · fatherfather; dad84%
- 笆bā · ㄅㄚ部首 竹 · bambooan article made of bamboo strips; fence93%
- 爬pá · ㄆㄚˊ部首 爪 · foot of a bird or animalto crawl; to climb70%
- 芭bā · ㄅㄚ部首 艸 · grassan unidentified fragrant plant mentioned in the Songs of Chu 楚辭|楚辞93%
- 耙bà · ㄅㄚˋ部首 耒 · plowa hoe; to harrow84%
- 疤bā · ㄅㄚ部首 疒 病字頭 · sickscar; scab93%
The percentage is our computed confidence that 巴 really signals that character’s sound — scored from how closely the readings agree and how reliably 巴 predicts the sound of every character built on it. Mean for this family: 86%.
Words this family builds
- 爸爸
- 老爸
- 酒吧
- 巴黎
- 把手
- 爸媽
- 嘴巴
- 巴士
All 3,000 characters · $17.99 once · what’s in the full map