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坤

Mandarin · pinyin kūn

one of the Eight Trigrams 八卦 bā guà, symbolizing earth
female principle
☷
ancient Chinese compass point: 225° (southwest)

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坤: kūn · earth; feminine, female; trigram ☷; hexagram ䷁

Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1 · kun1

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1character link35same-tone records1source reference

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Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

kwan1

Cantonese word readings for 坤. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

character · Etymology 1

earth
(feminine) feminine, female
eighth of the eight trigrams (bagua) used in Taoist cosmology, represented by the symbol ☷
second hexagram of the I Ching, represented by the symbol ䷁

character · Etymology 2

(Internet slang) Used as a replacement for 雞 /鸡 (jī, “chicken”) or its homophones.
(Internet slang) two and a half years

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

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