Example sentences
zǎo早shàng上pǎo跑bù步jīng精shén神hǎo好。
Morning runs keep you fresh.
tā他pǎo跑bù步pǎo跑dé得chuǎn喘。
He's out of breath from running.
About this word
跑 is "to run" and 步 is "step", so 跑步 is "running steps", the kind of running you do on purpose for exercise rather than to catch a bus. It is a verb-object compound and splits around what you add: 跑半个小时步, 跑步对身体好. 步 carries the same sense of a measured step in 散步 (to stroll) and 进步 (progress). To describe a sprint, Chinese drops 步: 他跑得很快.
The story behind the character
跑
跑 is 足 (foot) with 包 on the right for the sound. There's no deep picture hiding in here. Old rhyme dictionaries glossed 跑 as a foot pawing the ground, an animal scraping dirt with its hoof. All that stamping turned into running somewhere along the way, and 跑步 is what you do in the morning.
步
步 is two footprints, one in front of the other. Two 止, the old foot pictograph, stacked up. Xu Shen wrote 步, 行也, "to walk," and pointed out that the two feet face away from each other, heel to heel. The bottom half of 步 looks like 少, "few." It's actually a footprint pointing the other way.