舅

jiù
noun #24,007

Measure Word

一个舅 gè

Meanings

  1. 1 maternal uncle (mother's brother)

Examples

HSK 1
Wǒ jiù zhù zài Běijīng.
My maternal uncle lives in Beijing.
HSK 3
Jiù, nǐ hǎojiǔ méi lái le!
Uncle, you haven't visited in so long!

Tips

culture
Chinese kinship terminology is far more precise than English. 舅 specifically means your mother's brother. Your father's brother is 叔 (younger) or 伯 (older). The full form 舅舅 is also common. This specificity reflects the importance of distinguishing paternal and maternal lines in traditional Chinese family structure.

Components

radical
臼 jiù
mortar
The top 臼 (mortar) supplies both the indexing radical and the sound, giving 舅 its pronunciation through phonetic loan. The mortar imagery is purely phonetic here - it has no semantic link to the 'mother's brother' meaning.
semantic
男 nán
male; man
The bottom 男 (male) supplies the meaning - 舅 refers to male relatives on the mother's side. The 男-below-臼 stack reads as 'the man named by the mortar sound', a classic phono-semantic build.

Stroke Order

舅 jiù