jiǔ

long time (ago)

Original meaning: 

arrow nock

Depicts an arrow nock. The nock is the part of an arrow that is held against the bowstring before being launched. Based on the original meaning "arrow nock", now written as . The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Evolution

久 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
久 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
久 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

 

jiǔ

long time (ago); time passage, grow late; (long) time; (long) duration of time

Most common words with 久
Freq.
Word
Meaning

(long) time

多久

how long?

不久

soon

好久

quite a while

长久

(for a) long time

Component uses

Meaning component in 1 character (0 verified)

Sound component in 4 characters (1 verified)

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[k]ʷəʔ

kjuwX

jiǔ

a long time


Statistics

HSK level 3

Appears in 80.2018% of movies

456th most common character in movies

637th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

3

Unicode

U+4E45

Shuowen

“久,以後灸之,象人兩脛後有距也。”


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