倍 (bèi) · times (multiplier), -fold, double

Meanings

1 times (multiplier)
2 -fold
3 double

Characters

倍

bèi

times; -fold; double

Combines 亻 (person) with 咅 - originally meant something added alongside a person, hence 'double'.

Examples

HSK 4

他的工资是我的两倍。

Tā de gōngzī shì wǒ de liǎngbèi.

His salary is twice mine.

HSK 5

中国的人口是日本的十倍。

Zhōngguó de rénkǒu shì Rìběn de shíbèi.

China's population is ten times that of Japan.

HSK 5

今年的利润增长了三倍。

Jīnnián de lìrùn zēngzhǎng le sānbèi.

This year's profit has tripled.

Tips

grammar

A是B的X倍 means 'A is X times B.' Note: 增长了三倍 means 'increased by three times' (now 4x the original), which can be confusing.

Components

radical

亻 rén

person (radical form)

Left indexing person radical. Multiplication originally referenced people in pairs or groups: 'one person plus another' meant double, the seed of the modern multiplier sense. The person radical also helps situate the abstract counting meaning in a concrete human-scale image - counting bodies, then quantities.

phonetic

咅 pǒu

to spit out; to reject

Right component supplies the sound (pǒu → bèi, a labial shift seen across the same series in 培, 陪, 部). Purely phonetic - the modern 'multiply' sense rides on the 亻 radical. The shape decomposes into 立 over 口 (mouth ejecting sound) but stands as one phonetic unit here.