笃 (dǔ): sincere; earnest; deeply commit…

Meanings

1 sincere; earnest; deeply committed (bound form, mostly in compounds)
2 (of an illness) serious; critical

Characters

笃

dǔ

sincere; earnest; (of illness) serious

Examples

他对学问的态度十分笃实。

Tā duì xuéwèn de tàidù shífēn dǔ shí.

His attitude toward scholarship is profoundly earnest.

病情危笃,家属请尽快赶到。

Bìngqíng wēi dǔ, jiāshǔ qǐng jǐnkuài gǎndào.

The patient's condition is critical; family members please come as soon as possible.

Tips

register

Literary and bound — rarely stands alone in modern speech. Lives mostly in compounds: 笃信 (firmly believe), 笃实 (earnest), 笃爱 (deeply love), 危笃 (critically ill), 笃定 (definite, certain). The seriousness-of-illness sense survives in 危笃.

history

Tsinghua University's motto 自强不息, 厚德载物 sits alongside 校训 'spirit' words including 笃实 in many Chinese university mottoes — 笃 has carried Confucian connotations of unshaken sincerity since the 《论语》, where 笃信好学 ('earnestly believe and love learning') is one of Confucius' central virtues.

Components

radical

⺮ zhú

bamboo (top radical form of 竹)

Top bamboo radical — the compressed cap form of 竹, two miniature bamboo stalks side by side. The indexing radical, here largely decorative: 笃 originally meant 'a horse plodding slowly', so the bamboo top is borrowed for shape, not meaning. Same cap groups 笃 with 笑 (laugh), 答 (answer), 笔 (brush).

semantic

马 mǎ

horse (simplified from 馬)

Bottom 马 — pictograph of a horse with mane, tail and legs. Carries the core meaning: 笃 originally described a horse moving with heavy, deliberate steps — from which came 'solid, sincere, devoted' (笃信 deeply believe, 笃定 firmly settled). The horse below the bamboo grove is the literal pictorial scene.