重 (zhòng): heavy

Meanings

1 heavy
2 weighty
3 important
4 serious; grave

Characters

重

zhòng

heavy; important; serious

Examples

这个箱子太重了。

Zhège xiāngzi tài zhòng le.

This suitcase is too heavy.

这份工作对我来说非常重要。

Zhè fèn gōngzuò duì wǒ lái shuō fēicháng zhòngyào.

This job is extremely important to me.

医生说他病得很重，需要住院。

Yīshēng shuō tā bìng de hěn zhòng, xūyào zhùyuàn.

The doctor said he is very seriously ill and needs to be hospitalized.

Tips

usage

As zhòng, 重 covers a broad scale: physical weight (a heavy 箱子), abstract importance (重要, important), and severity (病得很重, gravely ill). The thread is 'carries significant weight,' literally or figuratively.

mistakes

重 has two readings. zhòng = heavy / important (重要, 体重). chóng = again / layer (重新, 重复). When in doubt, ask: does it mean 'heavy/serious' (zhòng) or 'redo/another layer' (chóng)?

Components

radical

里 lǐ

village; mile; inside

Lower indexing 里 radical — the modern filing component. Visually 里 shows 田 (field) over 土 (earth), an inhabited plot of ground. In 重 it's not historically productive (the original was 東+土), but the modern shape is filed under 里 for indexing convenience. Other 里-filed chars: 量 (measure), 野 (field/wild).

semantic

千 qiān

thousand

Top 千 — written as a 2-stroke contraction here (standalone 千 has 3 strokes; the bottom horizontal merges into 里 below in this overlay). Strict etymology disagrees: oracle-bone 重 shows a person carrying a heavy bundle over ground, and the modern shape is a fusion. 千 is a visual reanalysis, not historical, but pedagogically useful for indexing.