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| 生 shēng |
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| Explanation: grow |
| 生活 life 生产 produce |
“生”字最底下的一划代表地面，地面上长出了幼苗（ ）。后来字形变了，才变成了如今的“生”字。这个字本来指草和树木的生长，后来又有“生存”和“活”的意思；还可以用来指未煮过的食物。
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The original character 生 was a very vivid pictographic representation of a growing seedling （ ）: the horizontal stroke at the bottom of the character indicates the land; on the land a small seedling appears to have just broken through the soil, growing with vitality. Later the horizontal stroke turned into “soil” （ ）, and the seedling became like the shoot of a tree; finally the “tree” lost its shape and the character has become like the one we see today. The original meaning of was precisely the growth of grass or a tree; later it was extended to mean “alive” or “living”; it was also borrowed to mean “raw”.
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