结婚
jiéhūn · HSK 3
to marry; to get married
💍 结婚 = tie + marriage (结 tie/knot + 婚 marriage)
结 means to tie or knot; 婚 means marriage or wedding. Together they mean to get married — literally tying the marriage knot. The English idiom tie the knot lines up exactly with the Chinese compound.
结 — silk radical 糸 + lucky 吉 (phonetic)
结 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The silk radical 糸 on the left signals the meaning, since the original sense was tying threads or cords into knots. The right side 吉 (jí) provides the sound. From the literal 'knot' it extended to figurative senses like 'bind,' 'conclude,' or 'form (a bond).'
jié hūn · HSK 3
to get married
💍 结 (tie/knot) + 婚 (marriage) = tie the marriage knot
结 means to tie or knot, and 婚 means marriage or wedding. Together they literally mean to tie the marriage knot — the same metaphor English uses for getting married.
结 — silk radical 糸 + lucky 吉 (phonetic)
结 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The silk radical 糸 on the left signals the meaning, since the original sense was tying threads or cords into knots. The right side 吉 (jí) provides the sound. From the literal 'knot' it extended to figurative senses like 'bind,' 'conclude,' or 'form (a bond).'