赃 (zāng) · stolen goods, loot, spoils of crime

Meanings

1 stolen goods
2 loot
3 spoils of crime
4 booty

Characters

赃

zāng

stolen goods; loot

Examples

HSK 6

他被当场抓住，人赃俱获。

Tā bèi dāngchǎng zhuāzhù, rénzāngjùhuò.

He was caught on the spot - caught red-handed with the stolen goods.

HSK 7-9

警察查获了大量赃款赃物。

Jǐngchá cháhuò le dàliàng zāngkuǎn zāngwù.

The police seized large amounts of stolen money and goods.

Tips

usage

赃 appears in key legal/criminal vocabulary: 赃款 (stolen money), 赃物 (stolen property), 分赃 (to divide loot), and the idiom 人赃俱获 (caught red-handed with the goods).

Components

radical

贝 bèi

cowrie shell; treasure

Cowrie-shell radical on the left - ancient currency. Indexes 赃 in the wealth family with 财 wealth, 贿 bribe, 贪 greedy. Marks the character as money-related; combined with the right side, the meaning narrows to wealth obtained wrongly: loot, plunder, the proceeds of crime.

phonetic

庄 zhuāng

village; solemn

Right side 庄 supplies the sound, drifting from zhuāng to zāng with both initial and tone shift. In the simplified system this replaced the older phonetic 臧 (good, hidden) - note that traditional 贓 keeps 臧, whose 'hidden' sense suited stolen treasure better than 庄 does.