获胜
huòshèng · HSK 7
win victory
🏆 获 obtain + 胜 victory = obtain the victory, win
获 means to obtain or capture; 胜 means victory or to win. Put together, 获胜 is to obtain the victory, that is, to triumph or come out on top. The huò in 获 sounds close to the ho in hold, as in holding the win.
获 — dog radical 犭 + 蒦 (phonetic, grasp)
获 originally depicted catching a bird by hand, with 蒦 showing a hand grasping a bird. The dog radical 犭 was added to mean catching prey while hunting. In modern simplified Chinese, 获 also absorbed 穫 (harvesting grain), so it now covers both 'catch/obtain' and 'reap'.
胜 — flesh 月 (肉) + 生 sheng phonetic
胜 is a semantic-phonetic compound: the 月 (originally 肉 'flesh/meat') element gave it an early meaning related to raw or rank-smelling meat, while 生 supplied the sound. In modern Chinese it was adopted as the simplified form of 勝, meaning 'to win' or 'to surpass', so today it almost always carries that victory sense.