鞠 (jū): to incline (one's torso), to bow, leather ball used in ancient times, (literary) to bring up, to rear

鞠 (jū) is a Chinese character meaning “to incline (one's torso).” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 革 (semantic) and 匊 (phonetic). It ranks #2765 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 鞠 leather. Its radical form 革 (leather) appears in many related characters such as 鞋 (xié, shoe), 革 (gé, animal hide), 靴 (xuē, boots).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 革 leather17 strokesFrequency #2765革 semantic匊 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to incline (one's torso)
  2. to bow
  3. leather ball used in ancient times
  4. (literary) to bring up
  5. to rear

Etymology & Origin

鞠

pictophoneticleather

Decomposition: ⿰革匊 (layout: left-right)

Components:革semantic匊phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17

Practice writing 鞠 with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
鞠躬jū gōngto bow
鞠躬尽瘁jū gōng jìn cuìto bend to a task and spare no effort (idiom)
鞠躬尽瘁，死而后已jū gōng jìn cuì , sǐ ér hòu yǐto bend to a task and spare no effort unto one's dying day (idiom)
鞠躬尽力jū gōng jìn lìto bend to a task and spare no effort (idiom)
蹴鞠cù jūcuju, ancient Chinese football (soccer)
5
Total compounds
80
As first character
20
As last character
0
As middle character

鞠 appears in 5 compound words: 80 as the first character, 20 as the last, and 0 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Strongest Collocations

Characters that most frequently co-occur with 鞠 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

躬gōng
0.7955,698 co-occurrences
蹋tà
0.52796 co-occurrences
歉qiàn
0.5171,044 co-occurrences
萍píng
0.450354 co-occurrences
莉lì
0.374720 co-occurrences
跪guì
0.36760 co-occurrences
朱zhū
0.358558 co-occurrences
尽jǐn
0.355348 co-occurrences
盈yíng
0.342108 co-occurrences
铭míng
0.339102 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

鞠躬尽瘁jūgōngjìncuìHSK 7+

to bend oneself to a task and exert oneself to the utmost; to spare no effort in the performance of one's duty

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

这个鞠字在古汉语中有不同的含义。

zhè gě jū zì zài gǔ hàn yǔ zhōng yǒu bù tóng de hán yì .

The character "鞠" has different meanings in Classical Chinese.

马来西亚诗华日报新闻网Apr 2026

酒店员工提醒孩子勿玩旋转门 熊家长报警逼鞠躬道歉

jiǔ diàn yuán gōng tí xǐng hái zǐ wù wán xuán zhuǎn mén xióng jiā cháng bào jǐng bī jū gōng dào qiàn

三立新聞網Mar 2026

红茶巴士4度鞠躬灭火!道歉全文一次看

hóng chá bā shì 4 dù jū gōng miè huǒ ! dào qiàn quán wén yī cì kàn

Black Tea Bus Bows Four Times to Put Out the Fire! Read the Full Apology Here

Tatoeba

没有人向他恭敬地鞠躬。

Méiyǒu rén xiàng tā gōngjìng de jūgōng.

No one respectfully bowed towards him.

Tatoeba

在日本，遇到人鞠躬是有礼貌的表现。

Zài Rìběn, yùdào rén jūgōng shì yǒulǐmào de biǎoxiàn.

In Japan, it is polite to bow when one meets someone.

Tatoeba

男孩向我鞠了个躬。

Nánhái xiàng wǒ jū le gè gōng.

The boy bowed to me.

Character Family

革 Radical Family — Characters sharing the leather radical

靶bǎ鞭biān鞋xié靴xuē革gé

Related Characters

鞋xié革gé靴xuē靶bǎ鞭biān

Homophones — Characters pronounced jū

居jū局jú举jǔ巨jù拒jù具jù剧jù据jù距jù

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 鞠 (jū) mean in Chinese?
鞠 (jū) primarily means "to incline (one's torso)." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2765 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 鞠 and 下?
鞠 (jū) and 下 (xià) are often confused. antonym. The key distinguishing feature: 鞠 (up) vs 下 (down).
How many strokes does 鞠 have?
鞠 is written with 17 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 鞠?
The radical associated with 鞠 is 革 (leather). This radical appears in many characters related to leather.
What are the components of 鞠?
鞠 is composed of: 革 (semantic), 匊 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰革匊 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 鞠?
Common words with 鞠 include: 鞠躬 (jū gōng, "to bow"); 鞠躬尽瘁 (jū gōng jìn cuì, "to bend to a task and spare no effort (idiom)"); 鞠躬尽瘁，死而后已 (jū gōng jìn cuì , sǐ ér hòu yǐ, "to bend to a task and spare no effort unto one's dying day (idiom)"); 鞠躬尽力 (jū gōng jìn lì, "to bend to a task and spare no effort (idiom)"); 蹴鞠 (cù jū, "cuju, ancient Chinese football (soccer)"). There are over 5 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 鞠 (jū)?
Several characters share the pronunciation jū: 居 (to reside), 局 (narrow), 举 (to lift), 巨 (very large), and 5 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 鞠 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 鞠 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 鞠 with real-time feedback

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Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.