臀

tún
noun HSK 7-9 #7,403

Measure Word

一个臀 gè

Meanings

  1. 1 buttocks; butt
  2. 2 hip; rear

Examples

HSK 5
Tā shuāidǎo de shíhou shāng dào le túnbù.
He injured his buttocks when he fell down.
HSK 5
Zhège dòngzuò kěyǐ duànliàn túnbù jīròu.
This exercise can work out the gluteal muscles.
HSK 7-9
Zuò tài jiǔ le, tún dōu má le.
I sat too long, my butt went numb.

Tips

usage
臀 alone is somewhat formal/anatomical. In everyday speech, 屁股 (pìgu) is much more common for 'butt'. 臀部 (túnbù) is the standard medical/formal term.

Components

radical
⺼ ròu
flesh; body part (radical form of 肉)
Bottom meat-flesh radical, the body-part form of 肉. Despite the visual resemblance to 月 (moon), this is a different glyph used exclusively for anatomy: 胸 chest, 腿 leg, 脏 organ, 背 back. It indexes 臀 firmly in the body-parts family and tells the reader to read everything above it as flesh, not as architecture.
phonetic
殿 diàn
palace hall; rear (here phonetic)
Top 殿 supplies the sound diàn → tún with the regular d/t alternation seen across this phonetic series. 殿 also carries a faint semantic kick: in palace architecture it means the rearmost building, the one set behind all the others - exactly the part of the body 臀 names. The buttocks are anatomically the rear hall of the human frame.

Stroke Order

臀 tún