忖 (cǔn): to ponder

Meanings

1 to ponder
2 to speculate; to guess
3 to weigh in one's mind

Characters

忖

cǔn

to ponder; to speculate

Examples

他暗自忖度对方的用意。

Tā ànzì cǔn duó duìfāng de yòngyì.

He silently weighed the other person's intentions.

她仔细忖思了一下，终于答应了。

Tā zǐxì cǔn sī le yí xià, zhōngyú dāying le.

She thought it over carefully and finally agreed.

Tips

usage

忖 is literary; in everyday speech use 猜 (to guess) or 考虑 (to consider). It most often appears in 忖度 — to weigh and guess at someone's meaning.

memory

Heart on the left, 寸 (an inch) on the right: measuring something inch by inch inside your heart — exactly what 'to ponder, to weigh up' means.

Components

radical

忄 xīn

heart; mind

Left is the upright heart radical 忄, the side form of 心. It places the word among mental and emotional activity — here turning something over in the mind.

phonetic

寸 cùn

inch (phonetic, with measuring hint)

Right is 寸, an inch, giving the sound cǔn and a neat overtone of measuring. The heart that measures is a mind that weighs and estimates — the meaning of 忖.