困 (kùn) · sleepy; drowsy

Meanings

1 sleepy; drowsy
2 trapped; stranded
3 difficult

Characters

困

kùn

sleepy; tired; trapped; difficult

A tree (木) enclosed in a box (囗) - a tree trapped in a confined space.

Examples

HSK 1

我好困，想睡觉。

Wǒ hǎo kùn, xiǎng shuìjiào.

I'm so sleepy, I want to sleep.

HSK 2

下午两点最困。

Xiàwǔ liǎng diǎn zuì kùn.

2 PM is when you're sleepiest.

HSK 3

他被困在电梯里了。

Tā bèi kùn zài diàntī lǐ le.

He was trapped in the elevator.

Tips

history

The character 困 shows a tree 木 enclosed in a box 囗 - a tree confined in a small space. This gives the meanings of being trapped and exhausted.

usage

困 meaning 'sleepy' is very common in daily speech: 我困了 (I'm sleepy). For 'trapped,' it often appears in the passive pattern: 被困.

Components

radical

囗 wéi

enclosure

Big enclosure radical (Kangxi 31) - the outer wall. 困 literally pictures a tree boxed in by walls, unable to grow. From 'penned-in tree' came the meanings 'trapped / hard-pressed / sleepy / exhausted'. Same wall: 国 country, 园 garden, 围 surround, 因 cause.

semantic

木 mù

tree; wood

Tree inside the enclosure. The image is a sapling that cannot spread its roots and branches because the wall pens it in - a perfect ideogram for 'cornered / stuck / exhausted'. The same trapped-tree imagery survives in idioms like 困境 'predicament' and 围困 'besiege'.