更

gèng / gēng

adverb HSK 3 #134

Meanings

1 even more
2 still more
3 further
4 still

Characters

更

gèng

even more; further

Examples

HSK 1

这个更好。

Zhège gèng hǎo.

This one is even better.

HSK 2

今天比昨天更冷。

Jīntiān bǐ zuótiān gèng lěng.

Today is even colder than yesterday.

HSK 3

我要更努力学习。

Wǒ yào gèng nǔlì xuéxí.

I need to study even harder.

Tips

grammar

Often paired with 比 in comparisons: A 比 B 更 + adjective means "A is even more X than B." Place 更 directly before the adjective or verb it intensifies - never after.

mistakes

Don't confuse the gèng reading (this entry, "even more") with the gēng reading of the same character 更 ("to change / night-watch"). Same character, two distinct words. Compounds like 更换 and 更新 use gēng; 更加 and 更多 use gèng.

Components

radical

曰 yuē

to say; speech-box radical

Middle 曰 is the speech radical and the entry's indexing radical. Semantically apt too: 更 came from 丙 plus 攴, picturing a watchman striking the night watches, so the speech-box stands in for the announcement of each new watch.

semantic

一 yī

one; horizontal cap stroke

The top horizontal anchors the cap of the character. Together with the 曰 just below it, the top stroke recreates the older 丙-shaped top of 更, which once carried the phonetic role; today it reads as a simple horizontal closing stroke.

semantic

乂 yì

crossed-stroke remnant; mowing-cross shape

The two crossing legs at the bottom are the stylised residue of 攴 / 攵, the right-hand-with-stick element used in old 更 to mean "to strike, change, replace." They give 更 both its replace sense (read gēng) and its developed comparative sense (read gèng, "even more").

Stroke Order

更 gèng

更