龚 (Gōng): surname Gong

Meanings

1 surname Gong
2 to supply; to provide (original sense, now written 供)

Characters

龚

Gōng

surname Gong

Examples

HSK 6

龚贤是清初金陵八家之一。

Gōng Xián shì Qīng chū Jīnlíng bājiā zhīyī.

Gong Xian was one of the Eight Masters of Jinling in early Qing painting.

HSK 7-9

龚自珍是晚清著名的改良派学者和诗人。

Gōng Zìzhēn shì wǎnqīng zhùmíng de gǎiliáng pài xuézhě hé shīrén.

Gong Zizhen was a leading reformist scholar and poet of the late Qing.

Tips

culture

龚 is a moderately common Chinese surname, ranked around 100th by population. Two famous bearers anchor the name in cultural memory: (1) 龚自珍 (1792-1841), late-Qing reformist scholar whose poem 《己亥杂诗》 contains the famous line 我劝天公重抖擞，不拘一格降人才 ('I urge Heaven to rouse itself again, and send down talent in every form'). (2) 龚贤 (1618-1689), early-Qing landscape painter, one of the Eight Masters of Jinling.

history

Historically, 龚 was an old graph for what is now written 供 (to supply, provide). Once 供 took over the verbal sense, 龚 specialised as the surname character only. Its original meaning was 'to give, supply' before this semantic differentiation.

Components

radical

龙 lóng

dragon

Top dragon radical (Kangxi #212), the indexing radical of the character. It also carries the sound: 龙 (lóng) and the character's reading gōng belong to the same Old Chinese phonetic series. The same element anchors 袭 (attack), 笼 (cage), and 聋 (deaf).

semantic

共 gòng

together

Bottom 共 carries the original meaning of 'supplying, offering with two hands' (the early form pictured two hands presenting an object). This element is the historical core: 龚 originally meant 'to supply', a sense later taken over by 供 (which adds the person radical 亻).