昆 (kūn): descendant; offspring

Meanings

1 descendant; offspring
2 elder brother
3 used in place names (e.g. Kunlun, Kunming)

Characters

昆

kūn

descendant; elder brother

Examples

昆明是云南省的省会。

Kūnmíng shì Yúnnánshěng de shěng huì.

Kunming is the capital of Yunnan Province.

昆虫种类非常丰富。

Kūnchóng zhǒnglèi fēicháng fēngfù.

There are very many species of insects.

Tips

usage

昆 is rarely used alone in modern Chinese. It mainly appears in compounds like 昆虫 (insect), 昆明 (Kunming), and 昆仑 (Kunlun Mountains).

Components

radical

日 rì

sun; day

Top sun radical — a pictograph of the sun, square in the small-seal style. In 昆 it carries the meaning of light and many — under one sun the whole crowd is gathered. Indexes 昆 in the same family as 晶 sparkling, 昌 prosperous, 昔 in the past.

semantic

比 bǐ

to compare; two people side by side

Bottom 比 — two people standing side by side, mirroring each other. Combined with the sun above, the picture is a crowd lined up under the same sky, which gave 昆 its core sense of 'multitude, together, elder of paired siblings.' Also yields 昆虫 the swarming family of insects.