寇 (kòu): bandit

Meanings

1 bandit
2 invader
3 enemy

Characters

寇

kòu

bandit; invader (single character)

Examples

日寇侵略了中国。

Rì kòu qīnlüè le Zhōngguó.

The Japanese invaders invaded China.

边境经常有外寇骚扰。

Biānjìng jīngcháng yǒu wài kòu sāorǎo.

The border was often harassed by foreign invaders.

Tips

usage

寇 is literary/formal. In modern Chinese it mainly appears in compounds like 日寇 (Japanese invaders) or 入寇 (to invade). Also a common surname (Kòu).

Components

radical

宀 mián

roof; house

Top roof radical — the indexing radical. Places the action under a house. The classical compound shows raiders breaking into a home. Same radical anchors 家, 安, 守, 客 — but here the meaning is sinister, not safe.

semantic

元 yuán

person's head (here: a person)

Bottom-left 元 — a figure inside the house, representing the resident or victim. Combined with the strike-component to its right, the picture is: an intruder under a roof striking the inhabitant. Not phonetic; supplies the human-figure semantics.

semantic

攴 pū

to strike; to tap

Bottom-right 攴 — a hand raised holding a stick, the act of striking. Together with 宀 (roof) and 元 (person), the three components compose 'striker breaking into house and beating the resident' = bandit. A vivid compound ideograph that tells the whole story in three pieces.