How to Write 痍 (yí) — Meaning “wound; bruise”

Picture the 疒 radical as a hospital bed, and imagine the right part 夷 as a person lying down with a bandage. The shape 夷 looks like a person (大) with a curved body (弓), so think "a person with a curved back has a wound."

When writing 痍, first write the radical 疒 (dot, left-falling, horizontal) then the right part 夷 (horizontal, left-falling, right-falling, horizontal, vertical, vertical fold). A common mistake is to make the 夷 part too narrow or to confuse the stroke order of 弓 inside 夷 — the final stroke is a vertical fold, not a separate vertical and horizontal.

痍 (yí) means a wound or bruise from injury, while 疣 (yóu) means a wart or skin growth, and 疤 (bā) means a scar left after healing. Visually, 痍 has 夷 inside, 疣 has 尤, and 疤 has 巴. In usage, 痍 often appears in formal or literary contexts, such as 疮痍 (devastation), whereas 疣 and 疤 are more common in everyday language.

痍 is rarely used alone in modern Chinese; it mainly appears in the word 疮痍 (chuāng yí), meaning "devastation" or "wounds" after a disaster, like in the phrase 疮痍满目 (scenes of ruin everywhere). It carries a formal, literary tone and is often found in news reports about war or natural disasters, not in daily conversation.

Common words containing 痍 include: 疮痍 (chuāng yí) — wounds; 痍伤 (yí shāng) — wound; injury; 创痍 (chuàng yí) — trauma / wound / scar.