卦 guà divination
divination; fortune-telling
怎么记住“卦”: 圭 jade block + 卜 fortune teller = divination. With a green jade block on her table, the fortune teller at the night market reads my palm and charges ten dollars for divination.
部件结构
形声 · Meaning + sound
One part gives the meaning, the other gives the sound.
卦 = 圭 jade block + 卜 fortune teller
- 圭 jade block sound
- 卜 fortune teller meaning
With a green jade block on her table, the fortune teller at the night market reads my palm and charges ten dollars for divination.
How it came to be
The fortune teller part gives the meaning and the jade block the sound.
用法
- A divinatory trigram/hexagram from the I Ching: 八卦 (bāguà) the eight trigrams, 算卦 (suàn guà) to tell fortunes.
- In modern slang 八卦 means gossip / to gossip: 别八卦了 (bié bāguà le) stop gossiping, a hugely common colloquial sense.
- So 八卦 lives a double life: ancient trigrams, and everyday tabloid gossip.