外汇
wàihuì · HSK 4
exchange
💱 外 (outside) + 汇 (remit/converge) = outside-money exchange
外 means outside/foreign; 汇 means to remit or converge (as in 汇款 remittance). Together: money that converges from outside — foreign exchange. Common in finance contexts like 外汇市场 (forex market).
外 — evening 夕 + divination 卜
Originally a compound of 夕 (evening) and 卜 (divination). Ancient Chinese divinations were performed in the morning; doing them at evening (夕) was considered irregular or 'outside' the norm. From this sense of deviation, 外 came to mean 'outside' or 'external'.
汇 — water radical 氵 + 㠯 (older form)
汇 is the simplified form of 匯, originally depicting water (氵) flowing into a container (匚), meaning a place where streams converge. From this came the extended senses of gathering, collecting, and remitting funds. Modern uses like 汇款 (remit money) and 词汇 (vocabulary) all stem from this idea of things flowing together.