岁月
suìyuè · HSK 5
years
📅 岁月 = 岁 (years/age) + 月 (months) — literally years-and-months, meaning the passage of time
岁 marks a person's age or a year of life; 月 is month or moon. Together they form a literary compound for the long stretch of time — years and months piling up, the flow of an era.
岁 — mountain 山 on top + 夕 evening below
Originally written 歲, depicting the planet Jupiter (歲星) whose roughly 12-year orbit was used to mark years; the character combined 步 (step) with 戌. The simplified form 岁 replaces the complex body with 山 over 夕. Its core meaning is 'year' or 'years of age'.
月 — pictograph of crescent moon
月 is a pictograph of a crescent moon, chosen over a full circle to distinguish it from 日 (sun). The inner strokes originally depicted the moon's shadow or markings. As a radical it often relates to the moon, time, or (via a lookalike form of 肉 'flesh') body parts.