传承
chuánchéng · HSK 7
pass down through generations
🔗📜 传 = transmit + 承 = receive — a relay handoff across generations
The first character means to pass or transmit, the second means to bear or receive. Together they describe the chain of handing knowledge or traditions from one generation to the next, like a relay baton passed endlessly forward.
传 — person radical 亻 + 专 (zhuān)
Originally a phono-semantic compound: 亻 (person) gives the meaning 'to pass on' between people, while 専/专 supplied the sound. Early uses referred to relay stations and messengers carrying word from place to place, which broadened to today's senses of transmitting, spreading, and handing down (as in tradition or biography).