经 jīng is a pictophonetic compound: the silk radical 纟 carries the meaning, with a phonetic on the right. The left element 纟 is the abbreviated form of 糸, a hank of twisted silk thread, and it marks 经 as belonging to the world of weaving and cloth. The right element supplies the sound and, in its older sense, the picture of threads stretched taut on a frame. The full traditional form is 經, simplified to 经 by reducing the silk radical and the right side.

The original meaning is concrete: the warp, the lengthwise threads strung on a loom before weaving begins. The warp is the structural foundation. It runs the full length of the cloth and holds everything in place while the crosswise weft (纬 wěi) is woven through it. Because the warp is the through-line that gives a fabric its order and continuity, 经 grew outward into a family of abstract senses:

1. Classic, canonical scripture. A foundational text that runs through a tradition the way the warp runs through cloth: 经典 jīngdiǎn (classic), 圣经 Shèngjīng (the Bible), 佛经 fójīng (Buddhist sutras), 易经 Yìjīng (the Book of Changes).
2. To pass through, to undergo. To travel the length of something, to live through it: 经过 jīngguò (to pass through), 经历 jīnglì (to experience), 已经 yǐjīng (already, having passed).
3. To manage, to run, the regular. To handle an enterprise along steady lines: 经济 jīngjì (economy), 经营 jīngyíng (to run a business), 经理 jīnglǐ (manager).

The thread running through every sense is the warp itself: the continuous structural line. A classic is the warp of a culture, an experience is a length you pass along, and managing a business is keeping its affairs running on a steady through-line.

When 经 names a book, it names a foundational one: the scripture or canon that runs through a tradition the way the warp runs through cloth. In the Confucian world the 五经 wǔjīng (Five Classics) are the bedrock texts, among them the 易经 Yìjīng (the Book of Changes) and the 诗经 Shījīng (the Classic of Poetry). In Buddhism the 经 are the sutras, the recorded teachings of the Buddha: 佛经 fójīng, the 心经 xīnjīng (Heart Sutra). For Christianity the single 经 is the 圣经 Shèngjīng, the holy scripture.

Because a 经 is by definition authoritative and well-worn, the everyday adjective 经典 jīngdiǎn has come to mean "classic" in the casual sense too: a 经典 film, a 经典 line, anything proven and enduring enough to be a touchstone. The thread is the same: a 经 is what a community returns to again and again as its through-line.

The third road from 经 leads into the world of running things. To 经 an enterprise is to keep its affairs moving along steady lines, the same image of the warp giving a fabric its order. 经营 jīngyíng means to operate or run a business; 经理 jīnglǐ, literally "the one who manages the threads," is the manager; and 经验 jīngyàn, the accumulated lessons of having managed and lived through much, is experience as practical know-how.

The grandest word on this road is 经济 jīngjì, the economy. It is a shortening of the classical phrase 经世济民, "to order the age and aid the people," the old ideal of statecraft. When Chinese needed a word to translate the Western "economy" in the modern era, 经济 was reached for, and the term that once named the whole art of governing a realm settled onto the narrower meaning of production, trade, and wealth.

Picture a loom with the silk 纟 strung lengthwise: the warp, taut and straight, running the full length of the cloth. That warp is 经, the through-line that holds everything together. Hold that one image and the three meanings unroll from it.

The warp is the structural foundation, so a foundational text is a 经: the classic, the scripture (经典, 圣经, 佛经). The warp runs the full length, so to travel a length is to 经 it: to pass through, to undergo, to have lived past (经过, 经历, 已经). And to keep the threads in order is to 经 an enterprise: to manage, to run, to order the realm (经济, 经理, 经营). Wherever you meet 经, look for the long unbroken line.