曲 (qū) · bent; crooked

Meanings

1 bent; crooked
2 winding; twisted
3 wrong; unjust
4 fermentation starter (mold-rich grain used for brewing or making soy products)

Characters

曲

qū

bent; crooked

Examples

HSK 1

曲径通幽。

Qūjìng-tōngyōu.

A winding path leads to a secluded spot.

HSK 6

山路曲折，很难走。

Shānlù qūzhé, hěn nán zǒu.

The mountain road is winding and difficult to walk.

HSK 6

请不要歪曲事实。

Qǐng búyào wāiqū shìshí.

Please do not distort the facts.

Tips

usage

Use qū for any 'bent / crooked / winding' sense: 弯曲 (to bend, curved), 曲折 (winding, complicated), 曲线 (curve), 扭曲 (to twist, distort), 歪曲 (to misrepresent). Also a surname (Qū). For tunes and music, switch to the qǔ reading.

memory

Look at the character itself: 曲 is literally a bent shape - a rectangular frame with two vertical slats that bend inward, the silhouette of a curved bamboo basket. That visual 'bend' is the qū reading. The same graph, transferred to the rising-and-falling line of a melody, gives the qǔ reading. One picture, two readings, both rooted in 'curving line'.

Components

radical

曰 yuē

speak frame (here graphic)

The 曰 radical supplies the outer rectangular frame and the closing bottom stroke, indexing the character. Pictographically 曲 originally depicted a bent bamboo basket; the modern silhouette has converged on the 曰 pattern for dictionary lookup even though the meaning has nothing to do with speech.

pictograph

丨 gǔn

two interior vertical strokes

Two short vertical strokes inside the frame, picturing the slats of a curved bamboo basket. They overlay the 曰 frame to give 曲 its bent-container shape - the original pictograph from which both the 'bent, crooked' (qū) and 'melody, song' (qǔ) meanings later branched.