馘 (guó): to cut off the left ear of a sl…

Meanings

1 to cut off the left ear of a slain enemy (used to count and report military merit)
2 the severed left ear taken as a trophy of war

Characters

馘

guó

severed enemy ear (archaic)

Examples

凯旋的将军献馘万计。

Kǎixuán de jiāngjūn xiàn guó wàn jì.

The triumphant general presented severed enemy ears by the tens of thousands.

Tips

register

guó is a strictly classical term tied to ancient Chinese warfare. After a battle, soldiers cut off the left ear of slain enemies and presented them to commanders as proof of kills. The practice was institutionalised in the Western Zhou and the term appears throughout the Book of Songs and the Three Histories: 献馘 (present the severed ears), 俘馘 (captives and ears — the standard pair of after-battle tallies). The character is essentially never used outside historical, military, and classical-text contexts.

Components

radical

首 shǒu

head

Left 首 — the indexing radical (Kangxi #185, head). Carries the gruesome semantic core: the trophy is part of the slain enemy's head — specifically the ear. The character was earlier written with 耳 (ear) as the semantic component (yielding the variant 聝); the modern 首 form generalises the body part.

phonetic

或 huò

or; some; supplying the sound

Right phonetic 或 — supplies the sound (huò → guó, a regular shift in the same phonetic series). The same phonetic anchors 国 (country — traditional 國), 域 (region), 惑 (confused). 或 originally pictured a weapon guarding a territory — the war-flavour fits the headhunting context here.