杲 (gǎo): (archaic) bright; brilliant (of…

Meanings

如日之杲，明亮高悬。

Rú rì zhī gǎo, míngliàng gāo xuán.

A classical line: 'as bright as the sun rising high in the sky.'

history

杲 is archaic and not used independently in modern Chinese, mainly surviving in names. The everyday word for bright is 明 or 亮.

memory

The sun 日 sitting on top of a tree 木 — the sun risen above the treetops, so it is bright. Contrast 杳, sun below the tree (dim, obscure).

radical

木 mù

tree; wood

木 the tree radical sits below the sun. The character is indexed under the tree radical though its meaning is about light, not wood.

semantic

日 rì

sun

日 the sun sits above the tree, picturing daylight risen over the woods — the source of the 'bright' sense.

杲 gǎo