氣
부수: 气
획수: 10획
氣 has the meanings ‘air’, ‘weather’, ‘mood’ and ‘energy’.
氣 = 气 + 米
X = semantic/phonetic + semantic
• 气 depicts wispy clouds and means ‘air’.
• 米 depicts grains of rice and means ‘food’.
氣 originally meant ‘to give food to someone’. From the Han dynasty onwards, 气 was used to mean ‘vapour’ via sound loan. This may have influenced a change of meaning in 氣 towards ‘air’ and ‘breath’.
From the meaning ‘air’ came the meaning ‘weather’. And from the meaning ‘breath’ came the meanings ‘manner’ and ‘mood’.
Evolution:
韓 = ’to give food to someone’ ➔ borrowed use ➔ ’air’ ➔ ’breath’ ➔ ’mood’
韓 = ’to give food to someone’ ➔ borrowed use ➔ ’air’ ➔ ’weather’
Mnemonic
Imagine opening the lid on a freshly cooked pot of rice 米. The steam is released into the air 气 and lightens your 氣분.
Vocab
| 氣 | 기 | spirit; energy |
| 空氣 | 공기 | air; atmosphere |
| 日氣 | 일기 | day’s weather |
| 氣象 | 기상 | weather conditions |
| 氣溫 | 기온 | temperature |
| 濕氣 | 습기 | humidity |
| 換氣 | 환기 | ventilation |
| 煙氣 | 연기 | smoke, fume |
| 感氣 | 감기 | common cold (virus) |
| 雰圍氣 | 분위기 | atmosphere; surroundings; mood |
| 氣分 | 기분 | feelings; mood |
| 勇氣 | 용기 | courage |
| 士氣 | 사기 | morale; fighting spirit |
| 人氣 | 인기 | popularity |
| 活氣 | 활기 | vitality; energy |
Other resources
Image searches
Google
Bing
Yahoo Japan
Baidu (click 图片)
Sogou
Pinterest
Flickr
CJKV
CJKV Dict
Wikitionary
Unihan Database
Korean
Chinese
Written Chinese
Arch Chinese
ZDic
CC-Canto
Chinese Text Project
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (etymology)
Chinese Boost
Japanese
Takoboto
Jisho
JLearn.net
Sakura
The Kanji Map
Sentence Search
Immersion Kit
Vietnamese
Bibliography
Affiliate links help support uK.
— Grant, B.K. (1982). A Guide To Korean Characters: Reading and Writing Hangul and Hanja, [s.v. 796]. Seoul: Hollym.
— Henshall, K.G. (1998). A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters, [s.v. 11]. Singapore: Tuttle Publishing.
— Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters, [s.v. 氣, 气, 米].
— Seely, C., Henshall, K.G., & Fan, J. (2016). The Complete Guide to Japanese Kanji: Remembering and Understanding the 2,136 Standard Japanese Characters, [s.v. 12]. Singapore: Tuttle Publishing.