业 (yè): industry

Meanings

1 industry
2 trade
3 line of business
4 sector

Characters

业

yè

business; industry; occupation

Examples

服务业是这个城市的支柱产业。

Fúwùyè shì zhège chéngshì de zhīzhù chǎnyè.

The service industry is the pillar industry of this city.

旅游业近年来发展很快。

Lǚyóu yè jìnniánlái fāzhǎn hěnkuài.

The tourism industry has developed rapidly in recent years.

Tips

usage

As a suffix meaning 'industry/sector', 业 is extremely productive: 服务业 (service industry), 制造业 (manufacturing), 农业 (agriculture), 工业 (industry), 商业 (commerce), 旅游业 (tourism).

grammar

业 also means 'profession' (职业), 'studies' (学业), 'business/enterprise' (企业), and 'karma' (in Buddhist context). The HSK 7 focus is on the industry/sector meaning.

Components

ideograph

业 yè

industry; profession; karma

Heavily simplified from 業 (13 strokes), which depicted a serrated wooden frame for hanging musical chimes or ceremonial bells. The 1956 reform kept only the toothed-rack silhouette and dropped the bottom 木. Modern 业 has no transparent component structure — analyze as a single ideographic unit recognizable by its forked-top profile, used today for "profession, industry, karma."

Filed under radical 一 (yī, #1) by convention. 一 is not a separate component in 业, so no strokes are highlighted.