萌芽
méng yá · HSK 7
to sprout
🌱 萌 (sprout) + 芽 (bud/shoot) = the first growth pushing up
Both characters carry the grass radical 艹 on top, marking them as plant words. 萌 is the budding/sprouting and 芽 is the young shoot, so together they name the very start of growth, literal or figurative.
芽 — grass radical 艹 + tooth 牙 (phonetic)
芽 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The grass radical 艹 on top signals plants, while 牙 ('tooth') below provides the sound 'ya'. The original sense is the tender sprout or shoot pushing up from a seed, like a small tooth emerging from the soil.