伤员
shāng yuán · HSK 6
wounded person
🤕 伤 injury + 员 member = the injured one in the group
员 yuán appears in team-role words like 员工 employee and 会员 member. Prefix it with 伤 shāng (injury) and you tag that member as the wounded one.
伤 — person radical 亻 + 㿝 (phonetic)
伤 is the simplified form of 傷. It combines the person radical 亻, indicating a human being affected, with a phonetic component derived from 昜. The original sense was a wound or injury to a person, which extended to mean 'to hurt,' 'injury,' and figuratively 'to grieve' or 'sorrow.'
员 — mouth 口 + shell/money 贝 (貝)
Originally a pictograph of a round bronze tripod vessel, with 口 depicting its round opening and 鼎 (later simplified to 貝/贝) showing the vessel itself. The original sense was 'round,' now written 圓/圆. It was borrowed to mean 'member' or 'person in a role,' which became its main modern meaning.