Definitions

zhūn to bury

Etymology phono-semantic

hole

Semantic: Phonetic:

About

is a classical character denoting an underground tomb and the act of interring the dead deep in the earth. It is composed of the radical ('cave') at the top, indicating a cave, pit, or grave, and the phonetic component underneath, giving the pronunciation zhūn. The character is almost never used alone; it appears in the compound 窀穸 (zhūnxī), a solemn literary term for a tomb or crypt in ancient funerary texts. Its usage is restricted to this archaic mortuary vocabulary.

Etymology Hide

Seal etymology image
Seal Chu (Warring States: 475-221 BC)
Seal etymology image
Seal Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical etymology image
Clerical Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
Traditional Modern
Simplified Modern