囚

qiú
noun #13,056

Measure Word

Meanings

  1. 1 prisoner
  2. 2 to imprison

Examples

HSK 6
Zhè bù diànyǐng jiǎng de shì yígè qiúfàn yuèyù de gùshi.
This movie is about a prisoner escaping from jail.

Tips

memory
The character shows a person (人) inside an enclosure (囗). Literally a person trapped in a box. One of the most visually intuitive characters.

Components

radical
囗 wéi
enclosure; border
Outer enclosure 囗 - the big square that wraps around the inside, formed by strokes 1, 2, and the closing stroke 5. The indexing radical, depicting a walled cell. Distinct from the smaller 口 (mouth) it visually resembles. Same wrapper family: 困 (trapped), 国 (country), 园 (garden) - all spaces with a definite boundary.
semantic
人 rén
person
Inside 人 - a person, drawn as the side view of a walking figure. The whole character is a pure compound ideograph: a person locked inside four walls equals 'prisoner'. One of the most transparent characters in the script. Same person pictograph appears in 囚's relatives 因 (because - person on a mat) and 困 (trapped - tree in enclosure).

Stroke Order

囚 qiú