jiù
noun #24,007

Measure Word

Meanings

  1. 1 maternal uncle (mother's brother)

Examples

HSK 1
Wǒ jiù zhù zài Běijīng.
My maternal uncle lives in Beijing.
HSK 2
Jiù, nǐ hǎojiǔ méi lái le!
Uncle, you haven't visited in so long!

Tips

culture
Chinese kinship terminology is far more precise than English. specifically means your mother's brother. Your father's brother is (younger) or (older). The full form 舅舅 is also common. This specificity reflects the importance of distinguishing paternal and maternal lines in traditional Chinese family structure.

Components

radical
jiù
mortar
The top (mortar) supplies both the indexing radical and the sound, giving its pronunciation through phonetic loan. The mortar imagery is purely phonetic here - it has no semantic link to the 'mother's brother' meaning.
semantic
nán
male; man
The bottom (male) supplies the meaning - refers to male relatives on the mother's side. The -below- stack reads as 'the man named by the mortar sound', a classic phono-semantic build.

Stroke Order

jiù