嬴 (yíng) · surname Ying, (archaic) variant of 赢, to win

Meanings

1 surname Ying
2 (archaic) variant of 赢, to win
3 (archaic) variant of 盈, full

Characters

嬴

yíng

surname Ying / (archaic) to win

Examples

HSK 5

嬴姓是上古八大姓之一。

Yíng xìng shì shànggǔ bā dà xìng zhīyī.

Ying is one of the eight great surnames of high antiquity.

HSK 7-9

秦始皇姓嬴，名政。

Qínshǐhuáng xìng Yíng, míng Zhèng.

Qin Shi Huang's surname was Ying and his given name was Zheng.

Tips

history

嬴 is best known as the royal surname of the Qin dynasty, 嬴政 (Ying Zheng) is the personal name of Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor (259-210 BC).

memory

Don't confuse with the visually similar 赢 yíng (to win) and 羸 léi (lean / weak). 嬴 keeps 女 inside the frame; 赢 has 贝 (money / shell).

Components

radical

女 nǚ

woman

女 is the indexing radical, reflecting that 嬴 was the ancestral surname of the Qin royal house, traced through matrilineal Shang-era clan lines. Bottom-center placement also mirrors the structural pattern shared with 赢 (where 贝 takes a similar central role).

semantic

亡 wáng

perish; lose

Top 亡 contributes the upper sound element of the original phonetic stack, its reading once carried over into yíng via Old Chinese vowel shifts. In modern terms it serves mainly as a distinctive top marker that distinguishes 嬴 from the visually similar 赢 and 羸.

semantic

口 kǒu

mouth

Middle 口 sits under 亡 in the upper stack, repeating the same head pattern shared by 赢 (win) and 羸 (weak). It functions structurally rather than semantically, a fixed graphic element that ties this character to the yíng/léi family.

semantic

月 yuè

moon; flesh

Bottom-left 月 contributes one limb of the three-piece base. Together with 女 and 凡 it makes the characteristic 嬴-family foot, a graphic hook that distinguishes this surname character from 赢 (which has 贝 in the same slot).

semantic

凡 fán

ordinary; all

Bottom-right 凡 closes the three-piece foot. It carries no independent meaning here, it's a fixed graphic slot in the 嬴-family signature, paired with 月 and 女 to give this character its distinctive sprawling base.