骨 (gǔ) · bone

Meanings

1 bone
2 moral character; backbone

Characters

骨

gǔ

bone

Examples

HSK 4

她是公司的骨干之一。

Tā shì gōngsī de gǔgàn zhīyī.

She is one of the company's core members.

HSK 5

他腿上的骨头断了，休息了两个月。

Tā tuǐ shàng de gǔtou duàn le, xiūxi le liǎng gè yuè.

He broke a bone in his leg and had to rest for two months.

Tips

memory

骨 is a pictograph of a bone joint, used figuratively for inner 'character' or 'spirit,' as in 骨气 (moral backbone).

usage

A colloquial reading gū is bound to a few words for rolling or buds, such as gūlu (to roll) and 花骨朵 (flower bud). Outside that small set the reading is always gǔ.

Components

pictograph

骨 gǔ

bone

骨 is a self-radical pictograph. The angular upper portion depicts the knob and socket of a vertebra or joint, while the lower 月 element is the flesh radical drawn as meat: bone wrapped in flesh, the visible anatomy of a limb. As Kangxi radical it heads bone-and-skeleton vocabulary: 髓 (marrow), 骸 (skeleton), 骷 (skull).

Radical

Bone Kangxi #188

Indexes the bone-and-skeleton vocabulary: anatomical, structural, and metaphorical. Compounds include 骼 (skeleton), 骷 (skull), 髓 (marrow), 骸 (bones / corpse), 骰 (dice, since dice were carved from bone). The graph shows the upper section of a vertebra over 月 (the meat radical), so flesh on bone, visible anatomy.