Chinese Character Wiki
雇

gù

employ

Original meaning: 

type of bird

Phonosemantic compound. 隹 represents the meaning and 户 represents the sound. Originally was the name of a type of bird. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components
户 sound component

户  Sound component

hù

  

door

隹 meaning component

隹  Meaning component

zhuī

  

bird

Evolution

雇 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
雇 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
雇 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
雇 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
雇 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

雇  

gù

employ, to hire; to employ; to hire; to rent

雇 (僱) 

gù

variant of 雇[gù]

Most common words with 雇
Freq.
Word
Meaning

雇

to employ

解雇

to fire

雇佣

to employ

雇员

employee

雇主

employer

Component uses

Meaning component in 1 character (1 verified)

僱

Sound component in 2 characters (2 verified)

顧 僱

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*[C.q]ʷˤa(ʔ)-s

kuH

gù

to hire


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 32.7247% of movies

999th most common character in movies

1817th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

12

Unicode

U+96C7

Shuowen

“雇，九雇，農桑候鳥，扈民不婬者也。从隹，戶聲。春雇鳻盾，夏雇竊玄，秋雇竊藍，冬雇竊黃，棘雇竊丹，行雇唶唶，宵雇嘖嘖，桑雇竊脂，老雇鷃也。，雇或从雩，，籀文雇，从鳥。”


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