丘
qiū
hill; elder; empty; a name
Meaning
- Topography: A hill, mound, or elevation. Generally denotes a feature smaller and more rounded than a mountain (山) or a formal embankment (阜). May refer to natural geography or man-made mounds.
- Proper Nouns: Used as a personal name (notably Confucius/孔丘) or as part of place-names.
Distinctions
- Topographic scale: Smaller and more rounded than 山; distinct from the formal embankment 阜.
- Burial mounds: While 丘 can refer to man-made mounds, specific burial mounds are more typically denoted by 冢 or 墳.
History and forms
- Variants: Semantic variants include U+3400 and U+5775.
Translator notes
- Sense Priority: When disambiguating, prioritize interpretations in the following order: Proper Name → Topography → Specialized/Loan.
- "Elder": This sense appears in archaic registers or kinship contexts. If this reading feels forced, consider whether the glyph is functioning as a proper name for an elder rather than a generic noun.
- "Empty/Hollow": A rare sense. When "empty" is the only viable reading in context, treat it with caution; it may be a phonetic loan (e.g., for 虧).
Decontextualized translator aid. This page describes plausible lexical range; it does not choose what the glyph means in a particular passage.