zōng
noun #7,908

Meanings

  1. 1 trace
  2. 2 track
  3. 3 footprint

Examples

Tā shīzōng le hǎojǐ tiān.
He's been missing for several days.
Jǐngchá zài zhuīzōng xiányírén de xíngzōng.
The police are tracking the suspect's whereabouts.
Nà zhī māo lái wú yǐng qù wú zōng.
That cat comes and goes without a trace.

Tips

usage
rarely appears alone in modern Chinese. It's most commonly seen in compounds: 踪迹 (zōngjì, traces), 失踪 (shīzōng, to go missing), 追踪 (zhuīzōng, to track), 行踪 (xíngzōng, whereabouts).
memory
The character has (foot) on the left and (ancestor/clan) on the right — think of it as 'the footprints your ancestors left behind,' i.e., traces.

Components

radical
foot
plants in the foot family — a trace or track is what a foot leaves behind. Same radical in run, jump, kick. The full square form is used here on the left, unlike where contracts.
phonetic
zōng
ancestor; clan
gives the sound zōng directly. There may be a faint semantic echo too — following 踪迹 (tracks) parallels following ancestral lines — but the main job is pure phonetic, mirroring , , .

Stroke Order

zōng