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字源zìyuánEtymology & Structure
字源洞见 zìyuán dòngjiàn · Etymological Insight
The modern 农 is a drastic shorthand for the traditional 農, and the simplified six strokes no longer divide cleanly into recognizable parts. Read it as a meaning-built graph that has been smoothed down, not as a sum you can take apart. The top sits under the 冖 cover that the dictionary files it under; the lower strokes are what survived of a much busier ancient picture.
That ancient picture is where the sense lives. The seal and bronze forms of 農 combined the field, 田, with a clearing tool and the element 辰 (chén), which named both a shell-edged hoe and the rising of certain stars that told a farmer when to plant. So the graph fused three things a peasant lived by: the ground worked, the blade that worked it, and the season read off the night sky. 农 means the labor of growing crops, timed to the turning year.
From that core the word fans out by association. The activity becomes the sector (农业, agriculture), the activity becomes the person who does it (农民, a farmer), and it becomes the world that activity builds (农村, the village; 农场, the farm). The same syllable that names dirt under fingernails also names a fifth of a national economy.
Japanese keeps the full traditional 農 and reads it nō, as in 農業 (nōgyō, agriculture); Korean reads the same graph nong (농). The simplified 农 is a mainland reform, so a sign reading 农 anywhere instantly marks the text as written for readers of simplified Chinese.
农事nóngshìThe Work of Farming
农业nóngyèagriculture
N 名词 míngcí
农 (farming) plus 业 (industry, sector). The whole economic field of growing crops and raising livestock, set against 工业 (industry) and 服务业 (services).
这个地区以农业为主。
Zhège dìqū yǐ nóngyè wéi zhǔ.
This region depends mainly on agriculture.
农场nóngchǎngfarm
N 名词 míngcí
农 (farming) plus 场 (ground, site). A working farm as an enterprise, larger and more organized than a single household plot.
农 (farming) plus 作物 (cultivated plant). The cultivated crops themselves: grain, cotton, vegetables, anything grown on purpose for harvest.
今年的农作物长得很好。
Jīnnián de nóngzuòwù zhǎng de hěn hǎo.
This year's crops have grown well.
农人nóngrénPeople & Place
农民nóngmínfarmer, peasant
N 名词 míngcí
农 (farming) plus 民 (the common people). A person whose work and household registration are agricultural. In modern China it also marks a social and administrative category, not only an occupation.
我的爷爷是个老农民。
Wǒ de yéye shì ge lǎo nóngmín.
My grandfather is an old farmer.
辨析 biànxī · 农民 vs. 农夫农民 is the everyday, neutral word and a census category; 农夫 (nóngfū) is literary and old-fashioned, the farmer of fables and poems.
农村nóngcūncountryside, rural area
N 名词 míngcí
农 (farming) plus 村 (village). The rural world as a whole, the standing opposite of 城市 (chéngshì, the city) in any discussion of Chinese society.
他从小在农村长大。
Tā cóngxiǎo zài nóngcūn zhǎngdà.
He grew up in the countryside from childhood.
农历nónglìthe lunar calendar
N 名词 míngcí
农 (farming) plus 历 (calendar). The traditional lunisolar calendar, named for farmers because its solar terms tell you when to plant and harvest. 春节 (chūnjié) falls on 农历 New Year.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is the fifteenth of the eighth lunar month.
成语chéngyǔIdioms & Set Phrases
寓兵于农yù bīng yú nóngto lodge soldiers among farmers: keep a militia by having peasants farm in peacetime and fight in warA classical statecraft principle: soldiers feed themselves from the land in quiet years, so the army costs little until it is needed. Used today of any scheme that hides one function inside another.
不违农时bù wéi nóng shído not violate the farming seasons: act in step with the right timeFrom the Mencius (孟子). The ruler who does not drag farmers off to other work during planting and harvest will have grain enough to feed the realm. Now a general caution against wrong timing.
士农工商shì nóng gōng shāngscholar, farmer, artisan, merchant: the four classes of old societyThe traditional ranking of occupations, with the farmer placed second only to the scholar and above the merchant, a clue to how high agriculture stood in the Confucian moral order.
谷贱伤农gǔ jiàn shāng nóngcheap grain hurts the farmer: low crop prices ruin the people who grow themA piece of classical economics still quoted in policy debates: when a bumper harvest crashes prices, the farmer who grew it earns less, not more.
记忆法 jìyìfǎ · Master Retention Image
Picture a farmer straightening up in a dark field just before dawn. The crops are still under cover, a sheet of mist lying flat over them like the 冖 lid sitting across the top of the character. He has not started by reading a clock; he started by reading the sky, watching for the star 辰 to lift over the ridge, the old signal that the soil is ready to break.
That single figure carries the whole word family. Give him a profession and he is 农民, a farmer. Give him a patch of houses and lanes and he is the 农村, the village. Give him an enterprise of fields and fences and you have a 农场, a farm. Hand the whole nation his labor and you have 农业, agriculture. Every one of those compounds is the same person seen from a different distance, all of them anchored to the one who reads the stars and works the ground.
相关xiāngguānRelated
Related entries — pages and vocabulary in the neighbourhood of this one
农业nóngyèagriculture农民nóngmínfarmer农村nóngcūncountryside农场nóngchǎngfarm农历nónglìlunar calendar务农wùnóngto farm for a living城市chéngshìcity工业gōngyèindustry种地zhòngdìto till the land丰收fēngshōubumper harvest农夫nóngfūfarmer (literary)庄稼zhuāngjiacrops (in the field)