gǔn

Gun, mythical father of Yu the Great

Original meaning: 

fishing line

Depicts a hand () holding a fishing line () while catching a fish (), now written as . The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components
魚 iconic component

  Iconic component

  

fish

玄 iconic component

  Iconic component

xuán

  

black

Depicts a fishing line.

又 iconic component

  Iconic component

yòu

  

(hand), again

Depicts a hand.

Evolution

鯀 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
鯀 Bronze script Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)

Bronze script

Mid Western Zhou (~900 BC)
鯀 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
鯀 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

() 

gǔn

giant fish; father of the emperor Yu

() 

Gǔn

Gun, mythical father of Yu the Great 大禹[Dà​Yǔ]

Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

5120th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

18

Simplified

Unicode

U+9BC0

Shuowen

“鯀,魚也。从魚,系聲。”


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