者 from HSK Level 3 Vocabulary List

The Chinese character 者 (zhě) is composed of two parts: the radical 彳(chì), which represents walking or stepping, and the phonetic component 者 (zhě), which is a simplified form of the character 坐 (zuò), meaning "to sit". The combination of these two components suggests the idea of "one who walks and sits", which can be interpreted as "a person who does something" or "a person who is engaged in an activity".In ancient Chinese, 者 was used as a suffix to indicate the agent or doer of an action. For example, in the sentence "行者无疆" (xíngzhě wújiāng), the character 者 is added to the verb 行 (xíng) to form the noun 行者 (xíngzhě), which means "a traveler" or "a person who travels".Over time, the usage of 者 as a suffix gradually expanded, and it began to be used to indicate not only the agent of an action, but also the recipient, the instrument, or the location of an action. For example, in the sentence "受者无愧" (shòuzhě wúkuì), the character 者 is added to the verb 受 (shòu) to form the noun 受者 (shòuzhě), which means "the recipient" or "the person who receives something".In modern Chinese, 者 is still commonly used as a suffix to indicate the agent or doer of an action. However, it can also be used as a pronoun, meaning "he", "she", or "it". In addition, 者 can be used as a conjunction, meaning "and", "or", or "but".Overall, the etymology of the Chinese character 者 reflects its evolution from a suffix indicating the agent of an action to a versatile character with multiple meanings and functions in the Chinese language.