词汇
cíhuì · HSK 4
vocabulary
📖 词汇 = words (词) + collection (汇) — a gathering of words
词 means word or term; 汇 means to converge or gather (as rivers merge). Together they name the pooled stock of words someone knows or a language contains — a lexicon.
词 — speech radical 讠 (言) + 司 sī (phonetic)
词 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The left side 讠 (simplified form of 言 'speech/words') gives the meaning, marking it as something related to language. The right side 司 supplies the sound, originally close to 'sī/cí'. Together it came to mean 'word', 'phrase', or a lyric/poem form.
汇 — water radical 氵 + 㠯 (older form)
汇 is the simplified form of 匯, originally depicting water (氵) flowing into a container (匚), meaning a place where streams converge. From this came the extended senses of gathering, collecting, and remitting funds. Modern uses like 汇款 (remit money) and 词汇 (vocabulary) all stem from this idea of things flowing together.