verb #60,535

Meanings

  1. 1 (classical) to flee; to abscond
  2. 2 (classical) to owe; in arrears

Examples

Shīrén Lín Bū yǐnjū Gūshān, zhōngshēn bù qiú shìtú.
The poet Lin Bu lived in seclusion on Solitary Hill, never seeking office.

Tips

history
'to flee / to owe' is not used independently in modern Chinese. It survives in bookish compounds like (to abscond) and (to be in arrears), and famously in the name of the recluse poet .
register
Archaic and literary only, found in old texts and etymology notes, not in everyday speech.

Components

radical
chuò
walk; movement
is the walking radical (the moving form of ), written last in stroke order. It carries the meaning: fleeing is moving away on foot.
phonetic
just now; a man's courtesy name
supplies the sound, drifted to bū. The same phonetic appears in (to catch) and (to feed).

Stroke Order