官 (guān): official

Meanings

1 official
2 government official
3 organ (body part)

Characters

官

guān

official; government officer

Examples

他是一个政府官员。

Tā shì yígè zhèngfǔ guānyuán.

He is a government official.

当官不容易。

Dāng guān bù róngyì.

Being an official is not easy.

五官很端正。

Wǔguān hěn duānzhèng.

The facial features are well-proportioned.

Tips

usage

官 in 五官 (five sense organs) refers to eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and eyebrows — the facial features.

culture

In imperial China, 当官 (becoming an official) through the imperial examination was the highest aspiration.

Components

radical

宀 mián

roof (radical)

Top roof radical — the indexing radical. Marks 官 as something housed in a building. The original sense is the official residence or government office where bureaucrats worked. Same family as 家 home, 安 peace, 守 to guard, 富 wealth — anything that lives or is kept under a roof.

semantic

㠯 yǐ

stylized stack of officials/mounds (semantic)

Bottom 㠯 — a stylised pile or mound, here pictured as a gathering of subordinate officials or soldiers stacked under one roof. The same shape sits in 师 (master, army-division). Combined with the roof above, it gives 'staff working in a state office' — exactly what 官 was.