倔 (jué): stubborn

Meanings

1 stubborn
2 obstinate
3 unyielding

Characters

倔

jué

stubborn; obstinate

Examples

这孩子脾气真倔，怎么说都不听。

Zhè háizi píqi zhēn jué, zěnme shuō dōu bù tīng.

This kid is really stubborn — no matter what you say, they won't listen.

他是个倔脾气，认定的事不会改。

Tā shì gè jué píqi, rèndìng de shì bùhuì gǎi.

He has a stubborn temperament; once he's decided something, he won't change.

Tips

usage

倔 is often used colloquially on its own or in 倔强 (juéjiàng). It carries a slightly negative tone, implying unreasonable stubbornness.

memory

The person radical 亻 plus 屈 (to bend) — a person who refuses to bend.

Components

radical

亻 rén

person (radical form of 人)

Left person radical — the side-form of 人 used at the left margin. Puts 倔 in the human-temperament family with 倨 (haughty), 傲 (arrogant), 倦 (weary). The radical signals that this is a quality of a person's character — stubbornness as something one is, not something one does.

phonetic

屈 qū

bend; yield (here phonetic+semantic)

Right 屈 supplies the sound — qū drifting to jué through the regular q→j palatalisation seen in 倦 → quán/juǎn pairs. Brilliantly, 屈 means 'to bend, yield' — so 倔 is literally 'a person who refuses to bend.' The phonetic doubles as a built-in mnemonic for the stubborn meaning.