四季
sì jì · HSK 7
season
🌸🍂 四 = four + 季 = season; the four seasons spring 春 summer 夏 autumn 秋 winter 冬
四 sì means four, 季 jì means season or period of the year. Together: the full annual cycle of four seasons. The character 季 also appears in words for the last month of a season.
四 — enclosure 囗 + divide 八
Originally 四 was written as four horizontal strokes (亖), a simple tally for the number four. The current form, showing 八 (divide) inside an enclosure 囗, was borrowed during the Zhou dynasty and gradually replaced the older tally form. The shape is unrelated to its meaning today.
季 — grain 禾 on top + child 子 below
Originally an associative compound showing young grain (禾) and a child (子), suggesting a young or immature crop. From this it came to mean 'youngest' among siblings, then a season or quarter of the year — a recurring period like a harvest cycle. Today it mostly means 'season' or a surname.