Chinese

重要

zhòngyào
important; significant; major
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 3

Etymology graph

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  • sound component
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Origin

The term is formed by combining the characters 重 and 要. The character 重 carries the meaning of heavy, while 要 means to demand, to ask, or to request. Together, they describe something that is both重大且緊要 (major and urgent).

In terms of its orthography, the character 重 contains the semantic component 人, meaning man, person, or people. It also utilizes the phonetic component 東, meaning east. The character 要 serves as the second component of the compound.

Confidence: high · written by gemma4:26b, checked statement-by-statement against the sources below.

「重要」在詞義上指重大且緊要。這個詞是由「重」與「要」兩個漢字構成而成。

其中，「重」的原意為「重（heavy）」。在字形結構上，該字包含表示「人（man; person; people）」的意符，並以「東（east）」作為聲符。

另一個組成成分是「要」，其原意為「要求、請求（to demand; to ask; to request）」。

Confidence: high · written by gemma4:26b, checked statement-by-statement against the sources below.

Lineage

  • characterChinese重 “heavy”
    • meaningChinese人 “man; person; people (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 隻／只 h)”
    • soundChinese東 “east”
  • characterChinese要 “to demand; to ask; to request”
Wiktionary etymology text

No etymology text yet. The graph shows what is known from the sources.

Sources