累计
lěi jì · HSK 7
to accumulate
🧮 累 (pile up) + 计 (count) = count things as they pile up: a running total
累 — field 田 on top + silk 糸 below
Originally written with multiple 田 stacked, depicting piled-up fields or bundles, suggesting accumulation. Later simplified to one 田 over 糸 (silk threads), reinforcing the idea of threads tied together in heaps. From 'pile up' came the senses 'burden,' 'tired,' and 'involve.'
计 — speech radical 讠 (言) + ten 十
计 is a semantic compound: 言 'speech/words' plus 十 'ten', suggesting counting or reckoning aloud. The original sense was to calculate or tally numbers, which extended to 'plan, scheme, plot' — any kind of mental reckoning. Modern uses like 计算 (calculate) and 计划 (plan) preserve both threads.