Kilo Lingo

发

fā

Traditional: 發

#1770 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

to send out, to issue, to develop

Word origin

The traditional form 發 depicted shooting an arrow from a bow, giving the core sense of sending out or releasing, from which to issue and to develop arose.

Origin
ideograph
Root
弓 (gōng, bow) with 癶 (bǒ) and 殳 (shū) elements depicting release

Stroke order

Stroke order for 发

发

Examples

封fēng邮yóu。

I sent you an email.

。

The teacher handed out books to us.

短duǎn。

He sent me a text message.

。

This company is developing very fast.

。

Please send the notice to everyone.

发 (fā) means to send out, to issue, or to develop, and is one of the most productive verbs in Mandarin. It heads many compounds such as 发现 (to discover) and 发展 (to develop).

Appears in 7 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 发.

发生fā shēngto happen, to occur发现fā xiànto discover, to find发誓fā shìswear an oath, vow出发chū fāto set off, to depart, to start out头发tóu fahair (on the head)发展fā zhǎnto develop, development, growth发射fā shèto launch, to fire, to emit

Used in

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This word is part of lesson 36.