度 (duó): to estimate

Meanings

1 to estimate
2 to gauge mentally; to size up
3 to conjecture; to surmise

Characters

度

duó

to estimate

Examples

他善于审时度势，总能做出正确的判断。

Tā shànyú shěnshíduóshì, zǒng néng zuòchū zhèngquè de pànduàn.

He is good at sizing up the situation and always makes the right call.

我无法揣度他的真实想法。

Wǒ wúfǎ chuǎi duó tā de zhēnshí xiǎngfǎ.

I can't guess his real thoughts.

她暗自忖度对方的意图。

Tā ànzì cǔn duó duìfāng de yìtú.

She privately surmised the other side's intentions.

Tips

register

The duó reading is literary and rare. You will almost only meet it inside fixed classical compounds: 审时度势 (size up the moment), 揣度 (to guess at), 忖度 (to ponder), 猜度 (to conjecture). In everyday speech, people use 猜 or 估计 instead.

memory

Same character, same picture of hand-with-rod — but here the measuring is internal, mental. You're not laying a ruler against cloth; you're laying a mental ruler against a person or a situation. Switch the tone from dù to duó when the measuring happens in the head.

Components

radical

广 yǎn

shelter; lean-to (radical)

Top-left wrapping shelter radical (Kangxi #53) — a roof leaning against a wall, marking enclosed space. Indexes 度 alongside 店 (shop), 府 (residence), 庙 (temple), 床 (bed), 庭 (courtyard) — places where things are housed, kept, or measured. Sets the stage: an indoor measuring act.

semantic

廿 niàn

twenty (graphic remnant)

Middle 廿 — graphically the residue of the older measuring-rod portion of the character. Originally 度 showed a hand grasping a length of cloth or rod; in the modern stylised form the rod has flattened into this 廿 shape. Functions as a visual bridge between the shelter above and the hand below.

semantic

又 yòu

right hand

Bottom-right 又 — a stylised right hand, the universal hand element. Here it depicts the hand doing the measuring, gripping the rod (廿) under the shelter (广). Together the picture is of someone indoors using a hand and a measuring stick — hence degree, extent, measure. Same hand appears in 取 (take), 友 (friend), 受 (receive).