(zēng): increase

(zēng) is a Chinese character meaning “increase.” Classified as HSK Level 4 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (semantic) and (phonetic). It ranks #446 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, earth. Its radical form (earth) appears in many related characters such as (zài, to exist), (, earth, ground), (chǎng, field, place).

Native pronunciation

Definitions

  1. increase

Etymology & Origin

pictophoneticearth

Decomposition: ⿰土曾 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15

Practice writing with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
verbzēng jiāto raise4
verbzēng zhǎngto grow4
verbzēng qiángto increase5
verbzēng jìnto promote5
verbbèi zēngto double6

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
zēng yuánto reinforce
zēng dàto enlarge
zēng duōto increase
zēng tiānto add
zēng sèto enrich
zēng gāoto heighten
jī zēngto increase rapidly
zēng yāto pressurize
yǔ rì jù zēngto increase steadily
zēng zhíto appreciate (financially)
měng zēngsharp increase
zēng guāngto add luster
zēng shēng(medicine) hyperplasia
zēng zhí shuìvalue-added tax (VAT)
jù zēngdramatic increase
79
Total compounds
67
As first character
14
As last character
19
As middle character

appears in 79 compound words: 67 as the first character, 14 as the last, and 19 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Strongest Collocations

Characters that most frequently co-occur with in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

jiā
0.663733,993 co-occurrences
xīn
0.527323,310 co-occurrences
tiān
0.49521,180 co-occurrences
0.49331,788 co-occurrences
qiáng
0.49261,644 co-occurrences
zhěn
0.49224,384 co-occurrences
cháng
0.472148,141 co-occurrences
què
0.46138,862 co-occurrences
yuán
0.44736,870 co-occurrences
guō
0.4464,230 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (3)

齿mǎ chǐ tú zēngHSK 6+

(self-deprecating) to have grown old without accomplishing anything (idiom)

phrase
yǒuzēngwújiǎnHSK 4+

to only increase and not decrease

phrase
yǔrìjùzēngHSK 6+

to grow with each passing day; to increase steadily

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

公司今年计划加百分之二十的产量,以满足市场需求。

Gōngsī jīnnián jìhuà zēngjiā bǎifēnzhī èrshí de chǎnliàng, yǐ mǎnzú shìchǎng xūqiú.

The company plans to increase production by twenty percent this year to meet market demand.

Yahoo FinanceFeb 2026

滙控季息料近3.3元17% 大行估50亿恒生股息入账补资本

滙 kòng jì xī liào jìn 3 . 3 yuán zēng 1 7 dà háng gū 5 0 yì héng shēng gǔ xī rù zhàng bǔ zī běn

HSBC Holdings' quarterly dividend is expected to be nearly 3.3 yuan, an increase of 17%, and major banks estimate that 5 billion Hang Seng dividends will be recorded to supplement capital

三立新聞網Feb 2026

台股金蛇年这7档规模翻倍 吸金力道猛

tái gǔ jīn shé nián zhè 7 dàng guī mó fān bèi zēng xī jīn lì dào měng

The scale of these 7 gears in the Year of the Golden Snake of Taiwan stocks has doubled, and the gold absorption is fierce

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

辉达本周公布财报 营收估67%

huī dá běn zhōu gōng bù cái bào yíng shōu gū zēng 6 7

Nvidia announced its financial report this week, with revenue estimated to increase by 67%

百度新闻Feb 2026

宏诚创新一季度订单迎爆发式长,国内首创产品订单排..

hóng chéng chuàng xīn yī jì dù dìng shàn yíng bào fā shì zēng cháng , guó nèi shǒu chuàng chǎn pǐn dìng shàn pái . .

Hongcheng Innovation quarterly orders to meet the explosive growth, the first domestic product orders lined up...

百度新闻Feb 2026

与伊朗新一轮谈判前 美国兵施压

yú yī lǎng xīn yī lún tán pàn qián měi guó zēng bīng shī yā

U.S. Troops Increase Pressure Ahead of New Negotiations with Iran

Tatoeba

遭受心脏病困扰的人数加了。

Zāoshòu xīnzàngbìng kùnrǎo de rénshù zēngjiā le.

The number of people suffering from heart disease has increased.

Tatoeba

晴朗的天气加了野营的乐趣。

Qínglǎng de tiānqì zēngjiā le yěyíng de lèqù.

The sunny weather made camping even more fun.

Tatoeba

交通事故的数量似乎在长。

Jiāotōng shìgù de shùliàng sìhū zài zēngzhǎng.

The number of traffic accidents seems to be on the increase.

Tatoeba

由于诸多不幸因素,单亲家庭在长中。

Yóuyú zhūduō bù xìng yīnsù, dānqīn jiātíng zài zēngzhǎng zhōng.

Due to a number of unfortunate causes, one-parent families are on the increase.

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced zēng

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 增 (zēng) mean in Chinese?
增 (zēng) primarily means "increase." It is classified as HSK Level 4, making it an upper-intermediate character. It ranks #446 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 增 and 减?
增 (zēng) and 减 (jiǎn) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 增 (increase) vs 减 (decrease).
How many strokes does 增 have?
增 is written with 15 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 增?
The radical associated with 增 is 土 (earth). This radical appears in many characters related to earth.
What are the components of 增?
增 is composed of: 土 (semantic), 曾 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰土曾 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 增?
Common words with 增 include: 增加 (zēng jiā, "to raise"); 增长 (zēng zhǎng, "to grow"); 增援 (zēng yuán, "to reinforce"); 增强 (zēng qiáng, "to increase"); 增大 (zēng dà, "to enlarge"). There are over 79 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 增 (zēng)?
Several characters share the pronunciation zēng: 赠 (to give as a gift), 综 (heddle). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 增 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 增 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear native pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.