更 (gēng): to change

Meanings

1 to change
2 to replace
3 to alter
4 to experience
5 one of five 2-hour night watch periods
6 watch (of a sentry or guard)

Characters

更

gēng

to change

Examples

请更换密码。

Qǐng gēnghuàn mìmǎ.

Please change your password.

他三更半夜还在工作。

Tā sāngēngbànyè háizài gōngzuò.

He's still working in the middle of the night.

五更天，鸡就叫了。

Wǔgēng tiān, jī jiù jiào le.

At the fifth watch (just before dawn), the rooster crowed.

Tips

usage

As a verb gēng means "to change / replace." Bound in formal compounds: 更换 (replace), 更新 (update), 更改 (alter), 变更 (officially modify), 更替 (alternate). Standalone 更 as a verb is literary; modern speech prefers 换 or 改 instead.

culture

The noun sense names one of the five night-watch periods of imperial China, each about two hours: 一更 19-21, 二更 21-23, 三更 23-01, 四更 01-03, 五更 03-05. Watchmen struck a wooden 梆 clapper to mark each one — the act called 打更. The system is gone but the phrase 三更半夜 ("dead of night") survives in everyday Chinese.

Components

radical

曰 yuē

to say; speech-box radical

Middle 曰 is the speech radical and the entry's indexing radical. Semantically apt: 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." That action sense is the source of this gēng reading; the sister reading gèng ("even more") developed later from the same root.