生 is extremely versatile: 生日 (birthday), 生气 (angry), 生病 (get sick), 学生 (student), 生活 (life), 生词 (new word). It's one of the most common characters in Chinese.
Components
pictograph
生shēng
to be born; life
Single self-pictograph — a sprout pushing up from soil. The upper three strokes draw the tender shoot with two new leaves; the bottom horizontal is the ground line, with the central stem cutting through it as one continuous figure. Self-radical (Kangxi #100). All the 'life / birth / growth / raw' senses radiate from this one image of new growth breaking through earth.
