疾 jí sickness
sickness; illness; disease; swift
How it came to be
The oldest form shows an arrow flying at a person, the sign for fast; the sense of illness came from another character merged into it.
用法
- Bound, literary-register word for illness: 疾病 (jíbìng) "disease" sounds more formal/written than plain 病.
- 残疾 (cánjí) "disabled/disability" is the standard neutral term used in official and medical contexts.
- Also carries a separate literary sense of "fast", as in 疾走 (jízǒu) "to walk swiftly", though this is rare outside classical-flavored writing.
- Doesn't stand alone as a verb meaning "to be sick", for that use 生病 or 病了.