Kuí
proper noun

Meanings

  1. 1 Kui, a one-legged mythical creature of ancient legend
  2. 2 Kui, legendary music-master who served Emperor Shun
  3. 3 old name for the Three Gorges region (modern Fengjie county, Chongqing)
  4. 4 Kui, a Chinese surname

Examples

HSK 4
Kuízhōu gǔ wéi Sānxiá ménhù.
Kuizhou (modern Fengjie) used to be the gateway to the Three Gorges.
HSK 7-9
Chuánshuō Kuí shì zhǐ yǒu yì zhī jiǎo de shèng yuèshī.
Legend says Kui was a sage musician with only one foot.
HSK 7-9
杜甫夔州作诗
Dù Fǔ céng zài Kuízhōu zuòshī shù nián.
Du Fu spent several years writing poetry in Kuizhou.

Tips

culture
Two famous Kuis. (1) In 《山海经》 is a one-legged ox-shaped beast whose roar produced thunder. (2) In 《尚书》 is Emperor 's minister of music. Confucius later remarked 夔一足 ('one Kui is enough') - a pun on 'one-legged' and 'one of him suffices', meaning a single competent man is enough for the task.
history
Place-name 夔州 covered the strategic Three Gorges entrance, modern 奉节县 in Chongqing. 杜甫's late-period masterpieces 《秋兴八首》 and 《登高》 were written during his stay in Kuizhou (766-768).

Components

pictograph
Kuí
Kui (legendary beast / sage)
A 21-stroke graph showing a bestial figure: head () on top, an animal trunk in the middle, with hands and a single foot (the down-stepping foot radical, Kangxi #34) below. Indexed under - the foot signals the one-legged beast of legend. Not analyzable into independent recognisable components in the modern form.

Filed under radical (suī, #35) by convention. is not a separate component in , so no strokes are highlighted.

In Pop Culture

夔州 Kuízhōu
Kuizhou (old name for Fengjie)
Old prefecture at the head of the Three Gorges where 杜甫 wrote his late masterpieces - now 奉节县 in Chongqing.

Stroke Order

Kuí