guó
verb

Meanings

  1. 1 (classical) to cut off the left ear of a slain enemy (as a war tally)
  2. 2 (classical) the severed left ear

Examples

Gǔdài zhànzhēng zhōng, guó zhǐ gē qǔ dírén de zuǒ ěr.
In ancient warfare this character meant cutting off a slain foe's left ear to count the kill.

Tips

history
is not used in modern Chinese; it is a classical military word — soldiers cut off slain enemies' left ears to tally kills. It is also written . It pairs the ear radical with the phonetic , the phonetic also in and .
register
Classical military vocabulary only; never used in modern speech or writing.

Components

radical
ěr
ear
is the ear radical, a pictograph of an ear. It supplies the meaning literally: this character is about a severed ear taken in battle.
phonetic
huò
or; perhaps (phonetic)
supplies the sound, drifted from huò to guó. It is the same phonetic core inside and .

No stroke data for ; the glyph shown is your device font, so component strokes can't be highlighted.

Stroke Order

guó