萃 (cuì): to gather; to assemble

Meanings

1 to gather; to assemble
2 collection; gathering
3 dense; lush (of vegetation)

Characters

萃

cuì

gather; assemble; dense; collection

Examples

这本书汇萃了众多名家的作品。

Zhè běnshū huì cuì le zhòngduō míngjiā de zuòpǐn.

This book brings together works by many celebrated authors.

英才萃聚，共同推动科技发展。

Yīng cái cuì jù, gòngtóng tuīdòng kējì fāzhǎn.

Outstanding talents gathered together to jointly drive technological development.

Tips

usage

萃 is mostly found in compound words or literary/formal language. Common compounds: 出类拔萃 (to stand out from the crowd), 荟萃 (to gather; a gathering of talent), 萃取 (solvent extraction).

Components

radical

艹 cǎo

grass; plant

The grass radical caps 萃, originally tagging it as dense vegetation. The picture is of grass clustered tightly — from there the meaning generalised to any gathering or assembly, including human ones. It anchors 萃 in the vegetation family while the abstract use ("gather") came later.

phonetic

卒 zú

soldier; sudden (here phonetic)

卒 supplies the sound — zú drifting to cuì, an irregular shift. The semantic of 卒 (foot-soldiers) carries a faint flavour of crowd and gathering, which fits the lush-growth meaning. Same phonetic in 醉 drunk, 粹 pure-essence, 碎 shatter — all cuì/zú syllables.