足 (zú) · foot; leg

Meanings

1 foot; leg
2 sufficient; enough; ample
3 fully; as much as

Characters

足

zú

foot; sufficient

Examples

HSK 2

他喜欢踢足球。

Tā xǐhuan tī zúqiú.

He likes to play soccer.

HSK 4

时间足够了。

Shíjiān zúgòu le.

There's enough time.

HSK 4

心满意足。

Xīnmǎnyìzú.

Perfectly content and satisfied.

Tips

usage

足 covers two big senses: the body-part 'foot/leg' (足球 soccer) and 'enough / sufficient' (足够 enough, 满足 satisfied, 不足 insufficient, 十足 complete). As a left-side radical it powers locomotion verbs like 跑, 跳, and 踢.

register

A literary reading jù means 'excessive', preserved in the classical phrase 足恭 ('overdone deference'). It is archaic with no everyday compounds; read zú in all modern use.

Components

pictograph

足 zú

foot; leg

A compound pictograph: 口 on top stands for the knee, originally a rounded kneecap shape, and 止 'foot' below shows the foot itself, together picturing the whole leg from knee down. As a left-side radical 足 powers locomotion verbs: 跑, 跳, 路, 跟, 踢, 踩, 跪.

Radical

Foot Kangxi #157

The foot radical. A compound of 口 (knee, originally rounded) over 止 (foot), the whole leg from knee down. Hugely productive in modern Chinese for verbs of locomotion and lower-body action: 跑, 跳, 路, 跟, 踢, 踩, 跪, 蹲. Almost always appears as the left-side variant �� in compounds.

Forms

足 zú

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𧾷 zúzìpáng

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