尽jìn

尽

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简体

Simplified Chinese

Modern simplified form (簡體). 尽 (jìn) is a simplified merging of the traditional characters 盡 (jìn, “to exhaust”) and 儘 (jǐn, “as much as possible”), both built around the dish radical 皿 with different lower components; the new form retains the dish and a simplified lower part. In contemporary usage it appears in 尽力 (to do one’s best), 尽情 (to one’s heart’s content) and 尽 (to the fullest).

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Shuowen

In oracle‑bone inscriptions, 尽 appears as a hand (又) gripping a brush (聿) above a bowl (皿), picturing the act of scooping out a vessel until it is empty. This concrete image of an emptied vessel gave rise to the abstract meaning “to finish, to exhaust,” and the character was later formed with 皿 as the semantic element and 聿 as the phonetic component. The simplified form 尽 retains this hand‑over‑bowl motif, reflecting the ancient act of cleaning and emptying, and today it appears in words like 尽头 (the end) and 尽力 (to do one’s best).

Pinyin

jìn· HSK 2

尽jìn

Character evolution

Shuowen

Pinyin