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狱

獄
yù
noun #4,722

Meanings

  1. 1 prison
  2. 2 jail
  3. 3 lawsuit

Examples

HSK 3
这个地方像地狱一样。
Zhège dìfāng xiàng dìyù yíyàng.
This place is like hell.
HSK 7-9
他被关进了监狱。
Tā bèi guān jìn le jiānyù.
He was thrown into prison.

Tips

usage
狱 is rarely used alone in modern Chinese. It appears in compounds like 监狱 (prison), 地狱 (hell), 越狱 (to escape from prison), and 冤狱 (unjust imprisonment).

Components

radical
犭 quǎn
dog (left-side form of 犬)
Dog radical on the left - the left-side form of 犬. Two dogs flanking a speech component depicts the original imagery of 狱: snarling guard dogs at a courtroom or jail, bracketing the verbal accusation in the middle. The indexing radical chosen for the modern dictionary.
semantic
讠 yán
speech; words (left-side form of 言)
Middle component is the speech radical - the left-side form of 言. Sits between the two dogs as the spoken accusation: arguments, charges, testimony. The whole compound originally pictured a legal dispute fenced in by aggressive watchdogs - the courtroom-as-kennel image at the root of 'prison, lawsuit'.
semantic
犬 quǎn
dog
Right side is the full 犬, mirroring the 犭 radical on the left. Pictograph of a dog with raised tail. The two dogs flanking the speech form the compound ideograph: speech contested between two snarling dogs gives prison and lawsuit. The duplication is the whole point - neither dog alone captures the adversarial scene.

Stroke Order

狱 yù