多 (duō): many

Meanings

1 many
2 much
3 more
4 how (in questions)

Characters

多

duō

many; much; more

Two 夕 (evening) stacked — many evenings, many times.

Examples

人很多。

Rén hěn duō.

There are many people.

多吃水果。

Duō chī shuǐguǒ.

Eat more fruit.

你多大？

Nǐ duō dà?

How old are you?

Tips

grammar

多 before a verb means 'more': 多喝水 (drink more water). Before an adjective in a question, it means 'how': 多大 (how big/old), 多远 (how far).

Components

radical

夕 xī

evening; sunset (lower)

Lower 夕 — the indexing radical (夕 #36). The doubled-evening (or doubled-meat) image gives the meaning: more than one of something, hence "many, much." The reduplication itself encodes plurality, like 林 (woods, two trees) and 双 (pair, two hands). Same compounding logic.

semantic

夕 xī

evening; sunset (upper)

Upper 夕 — pictograph of a moon. Strict etymology says the upper element was 肉 (meat), with 多 depicting piles of meat = many. Modern shape reads as 夕 stacked on 夕 — evenings on top of evenings. Either reading lands on the same meaning: abundance.