Character 赚

It means to earn, profit, gain—or, in another reading, trick.

In modern Mandarin, zhuàn is the everyday money reading: it covers earning, making a profit, and getting a gain. Compounds do the disambiguating: 赚钱 means “make money,” while 赚取 means “earn or obtain a profit.” Treat 赚 as a word-building character, not a standalone reaction.

Its history is layered rather than a one-inventor story. A Tang-era poem already uses 賺. The character is absent from the original 說文 but appears in a later 說文 addition glossed as “重買也” and “錯也”. Song-era sources record senses of being misled or mistaken and a musical form called 賺. The traditional form 賺 pairs a money hint, 貝, with a sound hint, 兼; 赚 is its simplified form. That is a meaning-plus-sound design for a money-related word, not a little picture of coins.

Read it by the words around it

In a message, 赚钱, 赚取, or 赚到 points to earning or gaining. 赚人热泪 means winning or moving someone to tears. When a person is being lured or fooled—such as “我赚你们来”—the deception reading takes over.

A bare 赚 is incomplete evidence. Let its object and neighboring words choose the English gloss; add the full compound when you want no ambiguity.