gèn
verb #39,424

Meanings

  1. 1 to extend across; to stretch unbroken

Examples

长城绵亘千里
Chángchéng miángèn qiānlǐ.
The Great Wall stretches unbroken for thousands of miles.
亘古未有壮举
Zhè shì yí xiàng gèngǔwèiyǒu de zhuàngjǔ.
This is an unprecedented feat that has never happened in all of history.

Tips

usage
Literary. It describes something stretching unbroken across space or time: 绵亘 (stretching continuously, of mountains) and 亘古 (throughout all the ages, since ancient times).

Components

ideograph
èr
two; two boundary lines
The top and bottom horizontals act as two limits; the character pictures something running unbroken from one boundary line to the other. These two strokes are written first and last in the stroke order, wrapping the middle.
semantic
sun; a span
The -like box in the center represents what spans between the two lines, reinforcing the sense of a continuous reach across a stretch.

Stroke Order

gèn