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Trying to understand each of the component words of the phrase 辛苦

辛 xin means bitter busuo

苦苦 seems to be the symbol you see at weddings (?)

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What are the full etymological meanings of each of the words, and why does combining them together mean 辛苦? (Why isn't bushou a tag)

edit: i am curious more about why combining the two characters together mean what they mean?

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    As @fat penguin said, the characters you see at weddings are 喜, (Happiness), and 囍, (Double Happiness). This is completely different from 辛苦. This character 囍 means “Double Happiness” because it is made up of 喜 X 2, thus "Double Happiness" The back story in short is that a scholar, in the Tang Dynasty, who came in 1st in the Imperial Examination wrote the word 喜 twice on his wedding day to signify the double happiness of passing the examination and getting married. Henceforth this double happiness symbol, 囍, is a must at all Chinese weddings.
    – Wayne Cheah
    Commented Jun 6 at 2:59
  • this is such a fun story! and what about 苦苦
    – ina
    Commented Jun 6 at 3:34
  • This question is tagged as glyph origin, I'm kind of lost here. Do you want the glyph origin of each individual character in the word or do you want the etymology of the word itself?
    – prismcool
    Commented Jun 6 at 4:48
  • @ina - please see my rather long reply to your comment in the answer column.
    – Wayne Cheah
    Commented Jun 6 at 6:22
  • check in zi.tools
    – ZhenRanZR
    Commented Jun 7 at 16:18

2 Answers 2

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辛 is a sharpness in taste, it may also mean spiciness

苦 means bitterness

辛苦 means hardship

The characters you see at weddings are 喜 and 囍.

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  • why isn't 苦苦 double bitterness?
    – ina
    Commented Jun 6 at 3:34
  • also can you explain more about its relation to busuo?
    – ina
    Commented Jun 6 at 3:34
  • I am not sure what busuo is :/
    – fat penguin
    Commented Jun 7 at 9:15
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Quote:- "...what about 苦苦...."

As for why isn't 苦苦 equate to "double bitterness", well, 囍, "double happiness", is more a single-event occurrence due to the specific circumstances as told in the back story of the scholar, (and thus an "artificial concoction", a runic symbol rather than a legitimate word. Therefore, only 喜 is a legitimate word.), and so it is not correct, linguistically speaking, to equate 苦苦 as "double bitterness"

Thus, 苦苦, unlike 囍, is therefore coupled with another double, 辛辛, making it, 辛辛苦苦, (lots & lots of hardship), to make it in a sense, "double bitterness", or "great hardship", like, 我父母辛辛苦苦地养大了我.

However,辛苦, by itself can be used as 她很辛苦的赚了一些钱. Here it is more about having to put in great effort, rather than "Hardship"

Also, the word 苦 has much socio-cultural significance for the Chinese who seems to see "hardship" as a positive facilitator of a person's character. So, we have words like, 吃苦, literally to "eat bitterness", meaning that by "enduring / eating hardship", one either becomes a better person or makes great achievements.

As for 喜, there is another way of saying "Double Happiness--囍", in the idiom, 双喜临门, meaning something like "Joyous events comes in twos or all at the same time" The 临门, meaning "at our doorstep", is to say these multiple joyous events come all together to our door / homes.

Or, to say 喜上加喜 to emphasize the "doubling" or "adding more" of happiness.

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  • Perhaps 梅开二度 is more common than 喜上加喜
    – typed-sigterm
    Commented Jun 6 at 16:31
  • Thanks for your comment. The things is since we are on the topic of 喜 and 囍, perhaps it is better to stick to idioms with these words in there. In any case, 梅开二度 has a more general application and not "Happiness Specific"
    – Wayne Cheah
    Commented Jun 7 at 1:27
  • 梅开二度 has a different meaning than 喜上加喜.
    – fat penguin
    Commented Jun 7 at 9:14

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