掘 (jué) · to dig; to excavate

Meanings

1 to dig; to excavate
2 to unearth

Characters

掘

jué

to dig; to excavate

The 扌 (hand) radical on the left shows it's a manual action. 屈 on the right gives a rough phonetic hint.

Examples

HSK 7-9

他在院子里掘了一个坑。

Tā zài yuànzi lǐ jué le yígè kēng.

He dug a hole in the yard.

HSK 7-9

考古队正在掘一座古墓。

Kǎogǔ duì zhèngzài jué yī zuò gǔmù.

The archaeology team is excavating an ancient tomb.

HSK 7-9

别自掘坟墓。

Bié zì jué fénmù.

Don't dig your own grave.

Tips

mistakes

Don't confuse 掘 (to dig) with 挖 (to dig). 掘 is more literary and formal, while 挖 is the everyday spoken word. In conversation, use 挖; in writing or set phrases, use 掘.

memory

Picture a hand (扌) bent over (屈) digging into the earth - that's 掘.

Components

radical

扌 shǒu

hand; radical form of 手

Left-side hand radical - the 3-stroke compressed form of 手. Indexing radical, marking 掘 as a hand action; here, digging or excavating. Same hand family: 挖 dig, 抓 grab, 推 push, 拿 take. The radical announces that the right side names how the hand is being used.

phonetic

屈 qū

bend; submit

Right 屈 supplies the sound - qū drifting to jué via the regular k-/j- palatalization that affected this whole series (掘, 倔, 崛, 厥). The 'bend' meaning of 屈 doesn't enter semantically; it is a sound-tag. The full picture: a hand making a curving, scooping motion downward - the body-language of digging.