尽力
jìnlì · HSK 4
to strive one's hardest; to spare no effort
💪 尽力 = exhaust + strength: spend all your power on it
尽 means to use up or exhaust; 力 means strength or effort. Together they mean using up all your strength — doing your utmost. The pinyin jìnlì stacks two falling tones, like a firm two-beat push.
尽 — hand 彐 holding brush over fire 灬
Originally depicted a hand holding a brush sweeping out the last embers in a vessel, suggesting 'finishing' or 'using up.' The simplified form 尽 replaces the older 盡, but keeps the core meaning of exhausting or completing something fully.
力 — pictograph of a plow or arm muscle
力 originated as a pictograph of an ancient plow, the main tool requiring physical exertion in early agriculture. Some scholars also see it as a flexed arm showing muscle. From this concrete image it broadened to mean 'strength, power, force, effort'.