干杯
gān bēi · HSK 2
to drink a toast
🍻 干杯 = dry + cup; drain the cup as a toast
干 means dry/empty and 杯 means cup, so 干杯 literally says empty the cup — the Chinese equivalent of bottoms up. Used like Cheers! when clinking glasses.
干 — pictograph of a forked weapon/shield
干 originally depicted a forked wooden weapon or shield used in ancient warfare, giving the early sense of 'to offend' or 'to oppose.' Over time it took on extended meanings like 'to concern' and 'trunk/stem.' In modern simplified Chinese it also absorbed 乾 (dry) and 幹 (to do; trunk), so one character now covers several unrelated words.
杯 — wood radical 木 + 不 (phonetic)
杯 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The 木 radical signals wood, since ancient cups were carved from wood, while 不 hints at the sound. Originally written 桮, it came to mean any cup or glass regardless of material.