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

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.

他旷课被老师发现了。

Tā kuàngkè bèi lǎoshī fāxiàn le.

He was caught by the teacher for skipping class.

她心胸旷达，从不计较小事。

Tā xīnxiōng kuàng dá, 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).