Example sentences
lái来wǒ我zhè这ér儿。
Come over here.
tā他míng明tiān天lái来。
He's coming tomorrow.
The story behind the character
来
来 was originally a stalk of wheat. The earliest form is an ear of grain drooping down. Xu Shen said 来 was the lucky wheat the Zhou people received from heaven. Then people borrowed it to mean "come," borrowed it so much that wheat lost its character. And a new 麦 had to be coined. The word you say for "come" every day is, at bottom, a wheat plant.