怕生 Origin — Dong Chinese Dictionary

pàshēng

stranger-shy

pà to fear

Phonosemantic compound. 忄 represents the meaning and 白 represents the sound.

Components

忄 Meaning component

xin, xīn heart

忄 is a component form of 心.

白 Sound component

bái, bai white

Change in sound

怕 and 白 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in Middle Chinese.
怕 pà
白 baek

Character Evolution

Clerical form — Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD

Regular Modern

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Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese
Zhengzhang		pʰraːɡs
		pʰraːɡ
Unicode	pà

說文解字

《說文》：“怕，無為也。从心，白聲。”

Sources

Character origin: 漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants: Unicode
Historical pronunciations: Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images: Academia Sinica
Etymology: Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

shēng, sheng life

Pictograph of a sprout (屮) emerging from the ground (一).

Components

屮 Iconic component

chè, cǎo sprout

Depicts a sprout growing.

Change in form

Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 屮 than it was in ancient scripts.

一 Iconic component

yī one

Used here to depict the ground.

Character Evolution

Bronze form — Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC

Regular Modern

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Component uses

Historical Pronunciations

	Middle Chinese	Old Chinese	Gloss
Baxter-Sagart	sraeng	sreŋ (MC srj- > sr-; or *s.reŋ ?)	bear, be born; live
	sraeng	sreŋ	fresh, raw
	srjaeng	sreŋ (or *s.reŋ ?)	bear, be born; live

說文解字

《說文》：“生，進也。象艸木生出土上。”

Sources

Character origin: 季旭昇《說文新證》p.506漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants: Unicode
Historical pronunciations: Baxter-Sagart
Historical images: Academia Sinica
Etymology: Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

怕 pà to fear

Components

Character Evolution

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

生 shēng, sheng life

Components

Character Evolution

Component uses

Sound (7 of 11 verified)

Meaning (4 of 5 verified)

Deleted (1)

Historical Pronunciations

說文解字

Sources

pà to fear

shēng, sheng life