欮
jué

uprising qi counterflow

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approved by Prismcool · Jun 3, 2026, 04:05 AM · Reviewed by Prismcool on Jun 3, 2026, 04:05 AM

changed wording

Changed fields: hint, components

Depicts difficulties exhaling (欠) when a person is upside-down (矢). 矢 here is turned upside-down. Later, the 矢 component was reanalyzed as 屰, depicting an upside-down person. Original form of 瘚.

Components

屰
屰 Iconic component

Originally 矢 turned upside-down, used here to imply inversion. Later reanalyzed as 屰, which also works as an iconic component.

欠
欠 Iconic component

Depicts a person with an open mouth. Used here to convey the idea of exhaling.


Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Old Chinese
Zhengzhangkod

說文解字

《說文》：“瘚，屰气也。从疒，从屰，从欠。欮，瘚或省疒。”

Sources

Character origin
鍾林《金文解析大字典》p.1099李学勤《字源》p.673
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)