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Definition 2024


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Translingual

Han character

(radical 96 +7, 11 strokes, cangjie input 一土戈十水 (MGIJE), four-corner 13132, composition)

References

  • KangXi: page 732, character 29
  • Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 21011
  • Dae Jaweon: page 1144, character 6
  • Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 2, page 1114, character 15
  • Unihan data for U+7403

Chinese

simp. and trad.
alt. forms

Glyph origin

Historical forms of the character
Small seal script
Characters in the same phonetic series () (Zhengzhang, 2003) 
Old Chinese
*kus
*ɡu
*ɡu
*ɡu
*ɡu
*ɡu
*ɡu
*ɡu
*ɡu
*ɡu
*ɡu, *qʰu
絿 *ɡu
*ɡu
*ɡu
*ɡu, *ko
*ɡu

Phono-semantic compound (形聲, OC *ɡu) : semantic  + phonetic  (OC *ɡu).

Etymology

"Ball", earlier some "kind of jade". Bodman (1980) relates this to Wuming Zhuang klauA2 (ball), and relates (qiú, “gem-adorned”) to Tibetan གྲུ (gru, lustre of gems). This character had a softened initial in Proto-Min.

Pronunciation



Rime
Character
Reading # 1/1
Initial () (30)
Final () (136)
Tone (調) Level (Ø)
Openness (開合) Open
Division () III
Fanqie
Reconstructions
Zhengzhang
Shangfang
/ɡɨu/
Pan
Wuyun
/ɡiu/
Shao
Rongfen
/ɡiəu/
Edwin
Pulleyblank
/guw/
Li
Rong
/ɡiu/
Wang
Li
/ɡĭəu/
Bernard
Karlgren
/gi̯ə̯u/
Expected
Mandarin
Reflex
qiú
Baxter-Sagart system 1.1 (2014)
Character
Reading # 1/1
Modern
Beijing
(Pinyin)
qiú
Middle
Chinese
‹ gjuw ›
Old
Chinese
/*[ɡ](r)[u]/
English "ball"?

Notes for Old Chinese notations in the Baxter-Sagart system:

* Parentheses "()" indicate uncertain presence;
* Square brackets "[]" indicate uncertain identity, e.g. *[t] as coda may in fact be *-t or *-p;
* Angle brackets "<>" indicate infix;
* Hyphen "-" indicates morpheme boundary;

* Period "." indicates syllable boundary.
Zhengzhang system (2003)
Character
Reading # 1/1
No. 10561
Phonetic
component
Rime
group
Rime
subdivision
1
Corresponding
MC rime
𧚍
Old
Chinese
/*ɡu/

Definitions

  1. beautiful jade
  2. percussion instrument made of jade
  3. ball, globe, orb
  4. (mathematics) sphere
  5. round, spherical
  6. earth
  7. ball (in sports)
  8. ball game
  9. Classifier for spherical objects.
  10. (Teochew, Xiang) Classifier for stringed objects. string
  11. (dialectal Mandarin, Jin, vulgar) Expletive. Often used in the form of ……個球. Underlying meaning may be "testes".

Compounds


Japanese

Kanji

(grade 3 “Kyōiku” kanji)

Readings

Etymology 1

Kanji in this term
きゅう
Grade: 3
on'yomi

From Middle Chinese (gjuw, ball, sphere, orb).

Pronunciation

Noun

(hiragana きゅう, romaji kyū, historical hiragana きう)

  1. sphere; globe; orb
  2. (baseball) pitch

Etymology 2

Kanji in this term
たま
Grade: 3
kun'yomi

Pronunciation

Noun

(shinjitai kanji, kyūjitai kanji , hiragana たま, romaji tama)

  1. ball
  2. bulb (as in a light bulb)

References

  1. 1 2 2006, 大辞林 (Daijirin), Third Edition (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Sanseidō, ISBN 4-385-13905-9
  2. 1 2 1998, NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 (NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary) (in Japanese), Tōkyō: NHK, ISBN 978-4-14-011112-3

Korean

Hanja

(gu) (hangeul , revised gu, McCune-Reischauer ku, Yale kwu)

  1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

Vietnamese

Han character

(cầu)

  1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.