渠

渠 (Kangxi radical 85, 水+9, 12 strokes, cangjie input 水尸木 (ESD), four-corner 3190₄, composition ⿱洰木)

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 633, character 48
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 17764
• Dae Jaweon: page 1040, character 7
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 3, page 1645, character 4
• Unihan data for U+6E20

Historical forms of the character 渠
Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han)
Small seal script

Phono-semantic compound (形聲／形声, OC *ɡa) : semantic 水 (“water”) + abbreviated phonetic 榘 (OC *kʷaʔ).

“ditch; canal; drain”

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *r-ka ~ *k(r)a (“path; way; channel; ditch”); probably the same word as 衢 (OC *ɡʷa, “passage”) (Schuessler, 2007). Cognate with Tibetan རྐ (rka, “gutter; channel; furrow”).

渠

1. ditch; canal; drain; man-made channel (Classifier: 條／条 m c)

   靈渠／灵渠  ―  Língqú  ―  Lingqu (a canal in present-day Xing'an County, Guangxi, China, constructed in 214 BCE)

   污水渠 [Cantonese]  ―  wu¹ seoi² keoi⁴ [Jyutping]  ―  sewer

2. (literary) big; huge
3. a surname

Unlike 溝／沟 (gōu), which refers to both artificial and natural watercourses, 渠 (qú) refers only to artificial watercourses.

Attested since 4th to 5th century CE, preserved in many central and southern dialects (Schuessler, 2007). See 佢 and 伊.

渠

1. (literary or dialectal) third-person pronoun; he; she; it

   • 問渠哪得清如許，為有源頭活水來。 [Classical Chinese, trad.]
     问渠哪得清如许，为有源头活水来。 [Classical Chinese, simp.]

     From: c. 12th century, 朱熹 (Zhu Xi), 觀書有感

     Wèn qú nǎ dé qīng rú xǔ, wèi yǒu yuántóu huóshuǐ lái. [Pinyin]

     [I want to] ask it [the pond] why it can be so clear. It is because running water continuously flows in.

(uncommon “Hyōgai” kanji)

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• On (unclassified): きょ (kyo)
• Kun: みぞ (mizo, 渠); かれ (kare, 渠); なんぞ (nanzo, 渠ぞ)

渠 (eum 거 (geo))

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渠: Hán Nôm readings: cừ, gừa, khờ, cự

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