sǔn

to decrease; to lose

to damage; to harm; (coll.) to ridicule; to deride; (coll.) caustic; sarcastic; nasty; mean; one of the 64 hexagrams of the Book of Changes: ䷨

hand (扌) + employee (员) = to damage or harm

The hand radical (扌) carries the meaning — a hand taking away or diminishing something. 员 is phonetic in origin but drifted far from modern sǔn; trust the hand for the sense of harm.

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MemberPhonetic
HandSemantic

他不小心把桌子坏了。

tā bù xiǎo xīn bǎ zhuō zi sǔn huài le。

he accidentally damaged the table.

你说话太了,别这样对朋友。

nǐ shuō huà tài sǔn le,bié zhè yàng duì péng yǒu。

the way you talk is too nasty — don't treat friends like that.

Words with 损

迟发性损伤

chí fā xìng sǔn shāng

delayed lesion

重复性劳损

chóng fù xìng láo sǔn

repetitive strain injury (RSI)

防损

fáng sǔn

loss prevention

附带损害

fù dài sǔn hài

collateral damage (both as a legal term, and as a military euphemism)

香消玉损

xiāng xiāo yù sǔn

see 香消玉殞|香消玉殒[xiang1 xiao1 yu4 yun3]

丘脑损伤

qiū nǎo sǔn shāng

thalamic lesions

停损单

tíng sǔn dān

stop-loss order (finance)

停损点

tíng sǔn diǎn

see 止損點|止损点[zhi3 sun3 dian3]

健康受损

jiàn kāng shòu sǔn

health damage

全损

quán sǔn

(insurance) total loss

割损

gē sǔn

circumcision (Bible term)

劳损

láo sǔn

strain (medicine)

More characters with 扌