qiú
noun #57,702

Meanings

  1. 1 (literary) a young horned dragon
  2. 2 (literary) curled; coiling

Examples

Jià qīng qiú xī cān bái chī.
Driving a green qiu-dragon with a white hornless dragon as side-horse.

Tips

history
is rarely used alone in modern Chinese. In classical texts it named a small horned dragon; it survives chiefly in the descriptive compound (a curly, dragon-like beard) and in literary descriptions of gnarled, coiling shapes.
register
Literary; appears in classical poetry such as Qu Yuan and in set descriptive phrases, not in speech.

Components

radical
chóng
reptile; creature
is the creature radical; dragons and serpents were classed with scaly creatures, so it gives the meaning category.
phonetic
a hooked, curling stroke
is a single curving hook on the right, suggesting the coiling body of the dragon and supplying a faint sound cue for .

Stroke Order

qiú