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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

困

/kʰu̯ən⁵¹/
to surround; to besiege
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 7
  • radical 囗
  • 7 strokes

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Origin

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 囗 (“surround”) + 木 (“wood”). Probably the original form of 梱 (OC *ŋɡuːn, *kʰuːnʔ, “doorsill”) and 閫 (OC *kʰuːnʔ, “doorsill”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • simplified fromChinese睏 “sleepy; tired”
    • meaningChinese目 “eye (Classifier: 雙／双 mn-t)”
  • ideaChinese囗 “box, enclosure”
  • ideaChinese木 “tree; woody plant”

Meanings

character
  1. to surround; to besiege
  2. to be surrounded; to be trapped
  3. to lock up; to detain
  4. difficult
  5. 47th hexagram of the I Ching
  6. hungry

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

困：故廬也。从木在囗中。

Xu Shen, c. 100 CE — the first analytical dictionary of Chinese characters.

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 窮苦、艱難、不發達。 例：艱困、窮困
  2. 陷在艱難痛苦中。 例：為病所困
  3. 包圍、圍住。 例：圍困、困住
  4. 疲倦、疲乏。 例：困頓、形疲神困
  5. 六十四卦之一。坎（☵）下兌（☱）上。有艱苦窘迫的意思。

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

How 困 was written 字形演變

  1. 困 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 困 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 困 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 困 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 困 in Regular script
    Regular
    楷書
    since c. 200 CE

Historical forms collected by the legacy etymfun dataset; most characters have several attested variants.

Sources

  • Historical glyph forms (zdic.net 字形演变) — Rights unverified
  • HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • 說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 困