剩下
shèngxià · HSK 5
be left over
🍱 剩 = left over + 下 = down; what stays down after the rest is gone
剩 means surplus/remaining and 下 here marks a resultative — the leftover settles down after others are taken. Think of food 剩下 after a meal: what remains on the table.
剩 — 乘 (chéng, ride/multiply) + 刂 knife radical
Originally written with 刀/刂 (knife) plus 乘 as the phonetic, 剩 meant 'to cut off the remainder.' Over time the cutting sense faded and the character came to mean simply 'surplus' or 'what is left over.' The 乘 component still hints at the shèng pronunciation.
下 — horizontal line 一 + mark below
下 is an indicative character: a long horizontal line represents a reference level, and a shorter stroke placed beneath it points to the area below. The original meaning 'below, down' comes directly from this spatial diagram, and it later extended to verbs like 'descend' and 'lower'.