鞠 (jū): to bow (the body)

Meanings

1 to bow (the body)
2 to rear / to bring up
3 leather ball

Characters

鞠

jū

to bow / leather ball (archaic)

Examples

他向老师深深地鞠了一躬。

Tā xiàng lǎoshī shēnshēn de jū le yī gōng.

He bowed deeply to the teacher.

鞠躬尽瘁，死而后已。

Jūgōng-jìncuì, sǐ'érhòuyǐ.

To bend over backwards in devoted service until death - a famous Zhuge Liang quotation.

Tips

register

鞠 is classical in origin and rarely stands alone. Its most common modern use is in 鞠躬 (to bow respectfully) and the famous idiom 鞠躬尽瘁 (to give one's all in devoted service). The ancient meaning of 'leather ball' survives in 蹴鞠, the precursor to modern football.

Components

radical

革 gé

leather; hide

Left-side leather radical - pictograph of an animal hide stretched out to dry, head at top and tail at bottom. Supplies the meaning: an ancient 鞠 was a stuffed leather ball used in cuju, the early kicking game often credited as football's ancestor. The radical also covers 鞋 shoe, 鞭 whip, 鞍 saddle.

phonetic

匊 jū

to scoop with cupped hands

Right side 匊 supplies the sound - jū read straight across with no shift. 匊 pictures two hands cradling rice, the original way of measuring grain. A faint flavor leaks in: a 鞠 ball is held in cupped hands before being kicked, and to 'bow' is to fold the body into a curl - both echoing the cradled-hands image.