noun #15,394

Measure Word

Meanings

  1. 1 cave
  2. 2 hole
  3. 3 grotto

Examples

HSK 5
Tùzi duǒ jìn le dòngkū lǐ.
The rabbit hid in a cave.
HSK 7-9
Dūnhuáng Mògāokū shì shìjiè wénhuà yíchǎn.
The Mogao Caves of Dunhuang are a World Heritage Site.

Tips

culture
Most famously appears in 莫高窟 (Mogao Caves) in 敦煌 - over 700 caves of Buddhist art spanning 1,000 years. Also in 石窟 (stone grotto), 龙门石窟 (Longmen Grottoes).

Components

radical
xué
cave; hole
Top cave radical - the roofed dwelling with two splayed legs below, picturing a cave-mouth held open. The indexing radical here, supplying the meaning: names a cave or grotto, often a sizable hollowed-out space like the Buddhist 石窟 rock-cut shrines at 敦煌 Dunhuang and 龙门 Longmen.
phonetic
to bend; crouch
Bottom supplies the sound - qū drifting to kū through a regular k/q palatalization. A neat semantic echo also rides along: means to bend or crouch, and a is exactly the kind of low shelter you have to stoop to enter. Same phonetic appears in dig out, sharing the cave-digging idea.

Stroke Order