戒烟(jiè yān) - to quit smoking in Mandarin

戒烟 (jièyān) means "to quit smoking". 戒 (jiè) on its own means "to give up, to abstain from" and turns up in other habit-breaking compounds too, while 烟 (yān) means "smoke" or, by extension, "cigarette".

Like many two-character verbs built from a verb plus its object, 戒烟 (jièyān) can be split apart when something goes in the middle: 戒了三年的烟 (jiè le sān nián de yān), "quit smoking for three years", puts the duration between 戒 (jiè) and 烟 (yān) rather than tacking it on the end the way an English speaker would expect.

It sits alongside 吸烟 (xīyān), "to smoke", as its natural counterpart - a doctor's advice sentence will often use both: 你应该戒烟，不要再吸烟了 (nǐ yīnggāi jièyān, búyào zài xīyān le), "you should quit smoking, don't smoke any more".