穴居 (xué jū) — to live in caves; to dwell in caves | TongTong Chinese Dictionary

Definition

Literary verb meaning 'to dwell in caves or holes', used mostly in writing about primitive peoples and archaeology rather than everyday speech.

verb

to live in cavesto dwell in caves

Examples

穴居。
Yuán shǐ rén xué jū zài zì rán xíng chéng de dòng xué zhōng.
Primitive people lived in naturally formed caves.
，穴居。
Zài zhōng guó xī bù, yǒu xiē rén zhì jīn réng rán xué jū.
In western China, some people still live in caves to this day.
穴居。
Kǎo gǔ xué jiā fā xiàn le gǔ dài xué jū de yí zhǐ.
Archaeologists discovered the remains of ancient cave dwellings.

Origin

Compound word

构词法gòucífǎ

偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

穴xuécave; hole

穴 'cave' and 居 'live' combine to mean live in caves.

Characters in this word

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

穴 possibly comes from a picture of a cave entrance or a door flap, matching meanings such as cave and hole.

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

尸古居

Meaning part形符xíngfú

Sound part声符shēngfú

古

古gǔ居jū

Close in sound todayThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

居 is built from 尸 as the meaning part and 古 (gǔ) as the sound part.

Appears in

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