乐队
yuèduì · HSK 3
band
🎺🥁 乐队 = music (乐) + team (队), a music team = a band
乐 means music or joy and 队 means team or troop, so 乐队 literally reads as music-team. Same 队 appears in 队伍 (troops) and 球队 (sports team), marking any organized group.
乐 — stylized depiction of a wooden instrument with strings
Originally a pictograph of a wooden frame holding strings or bells, representing a musical instrument. The character first meant 'music' (read yuè), and by extension came to mean 'joy, happiness' (read lè), since music brings pleasure. The simplified form 乐 streamlines the older 樂.
队 — 阝(mound) + 㒸 (phonetic, suì)
Originally written 隊, depicting people falling from a mound (阝). The early sense was 'to fall down,' later borrowed for 'a group' or 'team' descending or marching together. The simplified form 队 keeps the mound radical 阝 but replaces the right side with 人 (person), suggesting people gathered in a line.