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

掛

guà

to hang; to suspend

HSK 3
TOCFL 3
radical 手
11 strokes
絓
𮉤

Etymology graph

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Origin

;"to be dead"

May come from 掛電話 or 掛彩.

;"to fail an exam"

May come from 掛紅燈籠.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

partChinese扌 “left radical form of 手 (shǒu).”
partChinese卦 “divinatory trigram or hexagram of the I Ching”
- soundChinese圭 “jade pointed at top”
  - componentChinese士 “unmarried male; bachelor”
- meaningChinese卜 “to divine”

Words built on it: 挂

Meanings

character

to hang; to suspend
to put aside (a matter, a case, etc.)
to put someone through (in a phone call); to call up; to ring up
to hang up; to terminate a phone call
to catch (something); to trap; to snag
to be covered or coated with

國語辭典 definitions

懸吊。例：牆上掛了一幅水墨畫。　◎
用來懸吊的。例：掛鉤、掛鐘、掛圖
牽念、懸念。例：掛心、牽腸掛肚
登記。例：掛失、掛號
佩戴、穿戴。例：脖子上掛著項鍊。
帶著。例：她為人和氣，臉上常掛著笑容。

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

How 掛 was written 字形演變

Small seal
說文小篆
Shuowen, c. 100 CE
Regular
楷書
since c. 200 CE

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

Sources

Structural decomposition (chaizi) — See upstream
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
Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
Wiktionary: 掛