工商界
gōngshāngjiè · HSK 7
industrial and commercial circles
🏭 工 work + 商 commerce + 界 world/circles
Three-part compound: 工 (labor/industry) + 商 (trade/commerce) + 界 (realm, boundary, sector). Together they name the combined sphere of industry and business — the people and firms in those fields.
商 — 亠 lid + 丷 + 冏 window/enclosure
In oracle bone script 商 depicted a raised platform or altar-like structure, and it served as the name of the Shang dynasty and its capital region. The modern components are a late simplification of that pictograph and carry no separate meaning. The sense 'trade, merchant' arose later, traditionally linked to Shang people who travelled to buy and sell after their dynasty fell.
界 — field 田 + scope 介
界 combines 田 (field) as the semantic component with 介 (jiè) as the phonetic. The original sense referred to boundaries between fields, then broadened to any border, limit, or realm — yielding modern meanings like 'world' (世界) and 'boundary' (边界).