租赁
zū lìn · HSK 7
to rent
🏠🔑 租赁 = 租 rent + 赁 hire; two near-synonyms doubled into one formal word for leasing
Both characters carry the rent/lease sense on their own. Stacking two synonyms makes a formal, contract-style term — the kind on a car or property lease. 赁 (lìn) is rare outside this pairing, so meeting one half flags the other.
租 — grain 禾 + 且 (phonetic)
租 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The grain radical 禾 on the left signals the meaning, since taxes and rent in ancient China were paid in harvested grain. The right side 且 supplies the sound. Originally it meant grain tax paid to the state, later broadening to 'rent' or 'lease' in general.