gāo
noun #32,896

Meanings

  1. 1 (bound form) testicle

Examples

HSK 6
Yīshēng jiǎnchá le tā de gāowán.
The doctor examined his testicles.
HSK 7-9
Gāowán shì nánxìng de shēngzhí qìguān.
The testicles are male reproductive organs.

Tips

usage
Bound form - almost never appears alone. Lives in 睾丸 (gāowán, 'testicle' lit. 'testis-pellet'), 睾酮 (gāotóng, 'testosterone'), 隐睾 (yǐngāo, 'undescended testicle'). Medical/biology register.
mistakes
Easy to misread as (gāo, 'shore; mound') - almost identical shape, but contains ('eye') at the top while has . Same pinyin, very different meanings.

Components

semantic
xuè
blood; bowl
Top - a vessel with a drop of blood above its rim, used as a graphic stand-in for an enclosed organ. The modern shape reads as , lending an anatomical, fluid-filled flavour fitting for an internal body part. Indexed under Kangxi #109 (mù) by tradition; no visible -element survives in the modern silhouette.
phonetic
xìng
fortunate
Bottom carries the phonetic role - xìng drifting to gāo through historical sound change. A similar phonetic-shape appears in and in with a different reading. Purely phonetic in ; the 'fortunate' meaning doesn't carry over.

Filed under radical (mù, #109) by convention. is not a separate component in , so no strokes are highlighted.

Stroke Order

gāo