顾 (gù) · to look after; to care for

Meanings

1 to look after; to care for
2 to attend to; to take into account
3 to look around; to turn around

Characters

顾

gù

to look after; to attend to

Examples

HSK 2

他只顾着玩手机。

Tā zhǐgù zhe wán shǒujī.

He's only focused on playing with his phone.

HSK 3

请照顾好自己。

Qǐng zhàogù hǎo zìjǐ.

Please take care of yourself.

HSK 4

顾客就是上帝。

Gùkè jiùshì shàngdì.

The customer is king. (lit: The customer is God.)

Tips

usage

顾 is used in: 照顾 (take care of), 顾客 (customer), 顾虑 (misgivings), 回顾 (look back/review), 不顾 (regardless of). Also a common surname.

Components

radical

页 yè

head; page (left-side form preserved)

Right-side 页 is the head radical (originally a person with an emphasised head). It indexes 顾 with head/face actions - 顾 means 'turn the head and look back', from which 'consider, attend to, take care of, customer' all flow. Family: 顶, 项, 颈, 颜.

phonetic

厄 è

distress; constraint

Left-side 厄 is a graphic substitute in simplified 顾 for the original phonetic 雇 (gù, hire) in traditional 顧. The standalone reading è is unrelated to gù - a shape-driven simplification that lost the sound link. Treat 厄 here as the reform's stand-in; the original phonetic was 雇.