雇员
gù yuán · HSK 7
employee
💼 雇 = hire + 员 = member; a hired member = employee
雇 (gù) means to hire or employ; 员 (yuán) means member or staff. Together they form hired-member, the standard term for a salaried worker. Pay-stub hook: gù sounds like 'goo' — the glue keeping a hired member stuck to the payroll.
雇 — door 户 + short-tailed bird 隹
Originally a phono-semantic compound: 隹 (bird) gives the meaning and 户 (door) hints at the sound, referring to a migratory bird (a type of cuckoo). The meaning later shifted by loan to 'hire' or 'employ', as in 雇佣, while the original bird sense faded from common use.
员 — mouth 口 + shell/money 贝 (貝)
Originally a pictograph of a round bronze tripod vessel, with 口 depicting its round opening and 鼎 (later simplified to 貝/贝) showing the vessel itself. The original sense was 'round,' now written 圓/圆. It was borrowed to mean 'member' or 'person in a role,' which became its main modern meaning.