Chinese Character Wiki
益

yì

benefit

Original meaning: 

overflow

Depicts food or drink filling up a container (皿). Based on the original meaning "overflow", now written as 溢. The meaning later shifted to "increase" and "benefit".

Components
◎ iconic component

◎  Iconic component

  

characterless component

Depicts food or drink filling up its container.

皿 iconic component

皿  Iconic component

mǐn

  

dish

Depicts a vessel for holding food or drink.

Evolution

益 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
益 Bronze script Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)

Bronze script

Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)
益 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
益 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
益 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

益  

yì

profit, benefit; advantage; benefit; profit; beneficial; to increase; to add; all the more

益  

Yì

surname Yi

Most common words with 益
Freq.
Word
Meaning

利益

benefit

收益

earnings

权益

rights

有益

useful

受益

profit

Component uses

Sound component in 8 characters (1 verified)

溢 隘 谥 謚 縊 缢 镒 嗌

Unknown component in 1 character (0 verified)

蠲

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*q[i]k (dialect: *-ik > *-ek)

'jiek

yì

increase


Statistics

HSK level 4

Appears in 18.8371% of movies

1589th most common character in movies

649th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

10

Unicode

U+76CA

Shuowen

“益，饒也。从水、皿。皿，益之意也。”


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