究
jiū HSK4

examine, scrutinize

Phonosemantic compound. 穴 represents the meaning and 九 represents the sound.

Components

穴
穴 Meaning component
xué, jué cave
九
九 Sound component
jiǔ nine

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartkjuwH[k](r)u(ʔ)-s scrutinize; go to the end

說文解字

《說文》：“究，窮也。从穴，九聲。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)