曾

céng / zēng

adverb HSK 4 #643

Meanings

1 once
2 already
3 ever
4 previously
5 past tense marker

Examples

我曾去过北京。

Wǒ céng qù guò Běijīng.

I once went to Beijing.

他曾经是老师。

Tā céngjīng shì lǎoshī.

He used to be a teacher.

我们未曾见过面。

Wǒmen wèicéng jiàn guò miàn.

We have never met.

Tips

grammar

Marks a past experience, similar to the particle 过 but more formal and often paired with it: 曾去过 = once went. Negate with 不曾 or 未曾 (never / hasn't ever).

usage

Literary short form of 曾经; in modern speech 曾经 is far more common while bare 曾 sounds bookish. Different reading on the same graph: as zēng it means 'great-' in kinship terms like 曾祖父.

Components

radical

日 yuē

say; speak (here vessel base, indexing 曰 radical)

Bottom rectangle is the 曰 radical (Kangxi #73, 'to say'). Originally the cauldron base of a steamer, the modern shape reads as the squat box and the dictionary indexes 曾 here. Visually almost identical to 日 (sun, Kangxi #72) — 曰 is the wider, flatter box.

pictograph

曾 céng

once; formerly (top body — fused steamer pot)

Top 8 strokes — the fused upper body of the original character: a tiered bamboo steamer with rising vapor (the 丷 cap = steam) over a chambered pot. The middle portion has no clean modern reading on its own and must be taken as a single graphic unit. Borrowed early on for the abstract sense 'once, formerly,' losing the cooking imagery.

Stroke Order