人员 (rén yuán) — personnel, staff, crew | TongTong Chinese Dictionary

Definition

人员 is a collective noun for 'personnel / staff' — the people working in an organization. Use 员工 for individual employees and 职员 specifically for office staff.

noun

personnelstaffcrew

Measure word · 个

Examples

。
Gōng sī zhāo pìn le xīn rén yuán.
The company recruited new staff.
人员。
Yī liáo rén yuán zài nǔ lì bāng zhù bìng rén.
The medical staff are working hard to help patients.
人员。
Zhè jiā chāo shì de rén yuán dōu hěn yǒu hǎo.
The staff at this supermarket are all very friendly.

Origin

Compound word

构词法gòucífǎ

联合liánhéCoordinate

Two parts of equal weight, alike or opposite in meaning, standing side by side.

'人' means person and '员' means member, so it refers to staff or personnel.

Characters in this word

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

The shape of 人 shows a side view of a standing person, with an arm and a leg.

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 員; 员 is its simplified writing.

Meaning part形符xíngfú

鼎鼎dǐngding

Sound part声符shēngfú

〇

〇líng員yuán

The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

In the traditional form 員, 〇 supplies the sound and 鼎 supplies the meaning; the simplified 员 is a shortened form.

Appears in

HSK 3.0 Level 4 HSK 2.0 Level 5 People (General)2000 Most Frequent Chinese Words 3000 Most Frequent Chinese Words 5000 Most Frequent Chinese Words

Browse more HSK 4 words or search the full 43,000-word dictionary.