合家 (hé jiā) — entire family, whole household

Definition

noun

entire familywhole household

合家。
Zhù nín hé jiā xìng fú ān kāng.
Wishing you and your whole family happiness and peace.
合家。
Chūn jié shì hé jiā tuán yuán de rì zi.
Spring Festival is a time for the whole family to reunite.
合家。
Zhè běn shū shì hé hé jiā yuè dú.
This book is suitable for the whole family to read.

Compound word

构词法gòucífǎ

偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

合 gives the sense of whole or entire, and 家 is family, so together they mean the whole household.

Characters in this word

Two or more meaningful parts placed together so that their meanings combine into a new one.

亼口合

合 shows 亼 and 口 arranged as two mouths speaking together.

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

Meaning part形符xíngfú

宀宀miánroof

Sound part声符shēngfú

𢑓

𢑓𢑓家jiā

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

The early drawing of 家 showed a roof 宀 over a male-pig sign 𢑓 that gave the pronunciation; the lower part later changed shape.