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 氒. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.
Evolution

Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Most common words with 久
Freq. | Word | Meaning |
---|---|---|
(long) time | ||
how long? | ||
soon | ||
quite a while | ||
(for a) long time |
Component uses
Meaning component in 1 character (0 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。” |
Sources
季旭昇《說文新證》p.480-481
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