This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
窮
In brief: a household without the Dao, a household in decline
Common reading
窮 means the limit, the end; a body under a cave, in straits.
Design reading
This group of characters takes “whether people are reasonable, whether there is a foundation in the Dao” as the core of their formation, showing in concentrated form the feature of Chinese characters that “ethical teaching is the rationale of their formation”.
穴 above (宀 standing for the household) and 八 below: yin and yang divided and unable to give rise to each other, an image of decline without the Dao; together they stand for a household without the Dao, a household in decline. The simplified 穷 is a household without the Dao that subdues others by force (力), a labourer without the Dao and without blessings who supports his family by strength; the traditional 窮: 躬 is oneself; a household with no Dao of yin and yang giving rise to each other, only oneself, is 窮.
Related characters
About this entry
This entry is taken from the edited manuscript of LI Xutong’s Exploring the Design Mysteries of Chinese Characters. The common reading follows traditional philology, the Shuowen Jiezi and other classics, and modern dictionaries; the design reading recovers the rationale of the character’s formation from the meanings of its strokes, the pairing of yin and yang, and the nine-palace layout, following the New Six Scripts. The premise of the design reading, that the generative mechanism of Chinese characters was designed, is an axiom of this system and differs from the evolutionary account usual in philology; the two readings are kept apart, as surface and depth.