政权
zhèngquán · HSK 6
political power
👑 zhèng (govern) + quán (power) = political power
The first character 政 means government or politics, and 权 means right or power. Together they form the compound for state power or regime — who holds the authority to govern.
权 — wood 木 + 雚 (heron, phonetic)
Originally a phono-semantic compound: 木 (tree/wood) gives the meaning, while 雚 supplies the sound 'quan'. The early sense referred to a specific tree, then shifted to mean a weight used on a steelyard balance. From 'weight' it extended metaphorically to 'authority' and 'power', the dominant modern meaning.