Most commonly encountered as a surname. In Taiwan it can also be read jù in the sense 'startled', though qú is the standard mainland reading. The character pictures a wide-eyed bird (隹, short-tailed bird) under two eyes (目 repeated).
culture
瞿昙 (Qútán) is the Chinese rendering of Gautama, the Buddha's family name - so 瞿 sometimes appears in Buddhist contexts as shorthand for the Buddha or his teachings.
The first eye sits on the upper left and is the indexing radical. Together with its twin on the right, the pair pictures a creature looking sharply in two directions at once - the wide, alert stare that gives 瞿 its startled-look meaning.
The second eye on the upper right mirrors the first. Doubling the eye component intensifies the look - not just gazing but staring wildly - and recalls the original 瞿 image of a hawk's twin eyes scanning for prey.
The bird at the bottom completes the compound ideograph: a short-tailed bird (a hawk or falcon) with two staring eyes. This raptor image is the etymological core of 瞿 and the source of its alarmed, wide-eyed nuance.
