开会
kāihuì · HSK 1
hold/attend meeting
🗣️📅 开会 = 开 (open) + 会 (meeting/gathering)
开 means to open or start; 会 means a meeting or assembly. Together they mean to hold or attend a meeting — literally to open a gathering. Same 会 appears in 会议 (conference) and 开 in 开始 (begin).
开 — two hands 廾 + door 门 (open gate)
Originally written 開, showing two hands (廾) lifting the bar (一) off a gate (門) to open it. The simplified form 开 keeps the two-hands element and drops the gate. Core meaning 'to open' extended to 'start, operate, bloom'.
会 — 人 person on top + 云 cloud/say below (simplified from 會)
The traditional form 會 showed a lid over a vessel with contents stacked inside, depicting things coming together — hence 'meet, gather, assemble.' From 'gathering' it extended to 'meeting,' then 'understand' (minds meeting) and 'be able to.' The simplified 会 keeps only a schematic top and bottom.