缺 - Dong Chinese dictionary

quē

be short of, lack

Original meaning:

damaged object

Phonosemantic compound. 缶 represents the meaning and 夬 represents the sound.

Components

缶 Meaning component

fǒu

pottery

缶 hints at the original meaning of 缺, "damaged object", which is no longer the most common meaning of 缺 in modern Mandarin.

夬 Sound component

guài

parted

缺 and 夬 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in older Chinese.缺 /*Nə-[k]ʷʰˤet/
夬 /*[k]ʷˤret-s/

Evolution

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)

Clerical script

Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)

Clerical script

Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)

Clerical script

Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)

Regular script

Modern

Definitions

缺

quē

be short of, lack; gap, deficit; deficiency; lack; scarce; vacant post; to run short of

Most common words with 缺

Freq.	Word	Meaning
	缺	lack
	缺乏	to lack
	缺少	lack
	缺点	fault
	缺陷	defect

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese	Middle Chinese	Pinyin	Gloss
*Nə-[k]ʷʰˤet	khwet	quē	break; defective

Statistics

HSK level 3

Appears in 32.6285% of movies

1230th most common character in movies

875th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes	10
Unicode	U+7F3A
Shuowen	“缺，器破也。从缶，決省聲。”

Sources

MTSU Chinese text computing

漢語多功能字庫

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Original meaning:

Freq.

Word

Meaning