茕

煢
qióng
adjective #48,699

Meanings

  1. 1 alone; solitary and without kin (classical)
  2. 2 grieved; forlorn (classical)

Examples

HSK 7-9
他茕茕孑立,无依无靠。
Tā qióngqióng-jiélì, wúyī-wúkào.
He stood utterly alone, with no one to lean on.

Tips

history
茕 means utterly alone and is not used by itself in modern Chinese. It lives on in fixed expressions like 茕茕孑立 (standing all alone) and 茕独 (orphaned and friendless), and shares its sound with 琼 (fine jade) through the same phonetic.
register
Classical and literary only. You meet 茕 in old prose and chengyu, not in everyday speech.

Components

radical
艹 cǎo
grass
In the simplified shape the top is written as the grass radical 艹, which serves as the indexing radical even though the traditional form 煢 was built differently.
phonetic
卂 xùn
to fly fast; (here) graphic residue
The lower body is a stylized remnant of the traditional 煢 and carries the sound, tying 茕 to its phonetic family.

Stroke Order

茕 qióng