再也
zài yě · HSK 5
(not) any more
🚫🔁 再 = again + 也 = also; 'again-also' → not ever again
再 means again/once more, 也 means also/too. Stacked together in a negative sentence (with 不 or 没), 再也 hardens the negation into never again or not any more.
再 — top 一 + 冂 frame + 土-like inner strokes
再 originally depicted a stack of fish or piled objects, suggesting accumulation or repetition. Over time it came to mean 'again' or 'once more,' emphasizing a second occurrence of an action. The modern form is stylized and no longer clearly pictographic.
也 — single-component pictograph
也 originated as a pictograph, traditionally interpreted as depicting a snake or a woman's basin/vessel — scholars debate the exact image. Its original concrete meaning was lost early, and by the classical period it was borrowed almost exclusively as a grammatical particle marking assertion or emphasis. In modern Chinese it means 'also' or 'too'.