Chinese word

赠

Pronunciation

Pinyinzèng

Meaning

  • verbgive as a gift

Example

我想赠你这本书。wǒ xiǎng zèng nǐ zhè běn shū

I want to give you this book as a gift.

Illustration for 赠 (give as a gift)

More examples

她把手机赠给朋友。tā bǎ shǒu jī zèng gěi péng yǒu

She gave her phone to a friend as a gift.

Core concept

A person places a meaningful possession in someone else's hands to show goodwill or respect.

Common phrases

  • 赠给朋友zèng gěi péng yǒu

    give as a gift to a friend

  • 赠送礼物zèng sòng lǐ wù

    give a gift

Similar words

送sòng: Hand something to another person as an everyday act of giving.
送给sòng gěi: Give something to a particular person in ordinary spoken language.
赠送zèng sòng: Provide something as a present in a fairly formal manner.
赠与zèng yǔ: Transfer property or rights to someone in a formal legal or official setting.

Definition in Chinese

把物品作为礼物无偿地给予他人，常用以表示心意或敬意，多见于较正式或书面表述。bǎ wù pǐn zuò wéi lǐ wù wú cháng dì jí yǔ tā rén cháng yòng yǐ biǎo shì xīn yì huò jìng yì duō jiàn yú jiào zhèng shì huò shū miàn biǎo shù

Word origin

The character 赠 (zèng, "give as a gift") is a phono-semantic form of 贝 (bèi, "valuable goods") + 曾 (zēng, "once"), with 贝 pointing to valuables and 曾 mainly supplying the sound.

Usage tips

  • This verb commonly appears in formal settings such as a donor presenting books to a school or an author presenting a signed copy, while casual exchanges usually use a less formal expression.

Opposites

Related words

Word lists with this word