刚刚
gānggāng · HSK 2
just now
⏰ 刚 doubled = 'just' + 'just' → just now, a moment ago
刚 alone means 'just/barely'; reduplicating it (刚刚) intensifies the recency, marking something that happened a heartbeat ago. The character 刚 originally meant 'hard/firm', then shifted to 'just barely' in time expressions.
刚 — knife 刂 + net/ridge 岡 (phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The knife radical 刂 carries the meaning of something hard or sharp, while 岡 (a mountain ridge) supplies the sound. The original sense was 'hard, firm,' as in a blade's edge, which extended to 'strong, unyielding' and later the adverbial sense 'just now, just barely.'
刚 — knife 刂 + net/ridge 岡 (phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The knife radical 刂 carries the meaning of something hard or sharp, while 岡 (a mountain ridge) supplies the sound. The original sense was 'hard, firm,' as in a blade's edge, which extended to 'strong, unyielding' and later the adverbial sense 'just now, just barely.'