旷 (kuàng): vast

Meanings

1 vast
2 spacious
3 open
4 to neglect
5 to skip (class or work)

Characters

旷

kuàng

vast / open / to neglect

Examples

HSK 3

他旷课被老师发现了。

Tā kuàngkè bèi lǎoshī fāxiàn le.

He was caught by the teacher for skipping class.

HSK 7-9

一望无际的旷野令人心旷神怡。

Yīwàngwújì de kuàngyě lìngrén xīnkuàngshényí.

The boundless open wilderness brings peace and joy to the heart.

HSK 7-9

她心胸旷达，从不计较小事。

Tā xīnxiōng kuàngdá, cóngbù jìjiào xiǎoshì.

She is broad-minded and never dwells on small matters.

Tips

usage

旷 has two main senses: (1) vast/open/spacious, as in 旷野 (open wilderness) or 旷达 (broad-minded); (2) to neglect or skip, as in 旷课 (skip class) or 旷工 (skip work). Both senses are common in written Chinese.

Components

radical

日 rì

sun; day

Left sun radical - pictograph of the sun with a substance dot inside. The indexing radical, putting 旷 in the daylight family with 明 bright, 晴 clear, 暮 dusk. 旷 specifically means "wide-open, sunlit space" - the sun shining across vast empty terrain (空旷 spacious, 旷野 open wilderness).

phonetic

广 guǎng

wide; broad (here phonetic)

Right 广 supplies the sound - guǎng drifting to kuàng. 广 also adds strong semantic flavour: wide, broad, open. With sun above, the picture is "open ground bathed in sunlight" - fitting both the physical sense (旷野) and the metaphor of time wasted (旷课 skip class).