节 | jié

In Mandarin Chinese, 节 (Pinyin: jié 🔊) is a word with a lot of meanings. As a noun, it can mean “joint”, “knot” (also as a unit of speed), “node”, “paragraph”, “segment”, “link”, “moral fibre”, “integrity”, “time period”, “rhythm”, “beat”, “season”, “festival”, “celebration”, “holiday” etc. As a verb, it means “to abridge”, “to limit”, “to control”, “to save” or “to use sparingly”. 节 is also a measure word, used for such assorted objects as batteries, school classes or train carriages. Naturally, there are many compound words using 节, for instance 春节 (chūnjié) “Chinese New Year”, 狂欢节 (kuánghuānjié 🔊) “carnival”, 五月节 (Wǔyuèjié) “Dragon Boat Festival” or 节节 (jiéjié) “step by step”.

节 is a simplified form of the traditional character 節, which is a phono-semantic compound of semantic 竹 (“bamboo”) and phonetic 即 (jí). According to Uncle Hanzi, its original meaning was “a joint of bamboo”. From this, with a bit of imagination, one can surely figure out all the other meanings of this word.

More photos of Chinese New Year, Dragon Boat Festival, carnival and sea glass @ Shutterstock.