櫛

A phono-semantic compound with an unusually transparent semantic layer:

木 (wood; tree) — semantic component, classifies the object as something made of wood, the traditional material of combs in antiquity;

節 (node; joint; section) — phonetic component, supplies the reading 즐 (jeul / jié), and simultaneously contributes semantic force through its embedded meaning of cutting and dividing (切, 끊다) — the nodes and divisions of bamboo or wood, evenly spaced, directly evoke the regular teeth of a comb. The choice of 節 as phonetic is thus doubly motivated: sound and image converge.

櫛 is a literary and classical character. In modern Korean and Chinese it rarely appears in everyday writing, having been largely replaced by simpler terms, but it survives in set compounds, idioms, and literary prose.

즐비 (櫛比) — arranged like the teeth of a comb; lined up in close, even rows; densely packed side by side.

목즐 (木櫛) — a wooden comb

즐목 (櫛沐) — combing and washing; grooming; personal care

Idiomatic expressions:

즐풍목우 (櫛風沐雨) — to comb the wind and bathe in the rain; a classical expression for enduring years of outdoor hardship and unrelenting toil — the wind combs the hair as a comb would, the rain washes the body as water would, leaving the laborer perpetually exposed to the elements. Used of soldiers on campaign, engineers on great works, and officials in the field.

즐비하다 (櫛比하다) — to be lined up like comb teeth; to stand in dense, even rows. In modern Korean this survives as a fully naturalized expression: 건물이 즐비하다 — buildings lined up one after another in close succession.

櫛 is a character whose most vivid life is idiomatic rather than literal. The physical comb — wooden, fine-toothed, an object of daily grooming — gave the character its form, but 즐풍목우 (櫛風沐雨) gave it its enduring presence in the literary language. The idiom is built on a parallel image: wind as comb, rain as water for washing. In both cases the natural element does to the body what the grooming implement would do — but without choice, without shelter, without rest. The body becomes the passive object of wind and weather as it would be of comb and basin, and the image of helpless exposure is complete.

즐비 (櫛比) takes the comb's teeth in a different direction: not the act of combing but the form of the comb itself — teeth evenly spaced, each touching the next, leaving no gap. Applied to buildings, stalls, ships, or graves standing in close rows, it remains one of the more visually precise classical compounds to survive into modern Korean as an active expression.

The semantic contribution of 節 in the etymology is worth dwelling on. 節 names the joints and nodes of bamboo — the natural, evenly spaced divisions that run along the stalk. These nodes are the visual model for comb teeth: regular, parallel, cut between. The character 櫛 thus describes its object twice over — wood in its material, and the divided, nodded structure of bamboo in its form.

Related characters:

梳 — a comb; to comb (synonym; the more common modern character for comb)

篦 — a fine-toothed comb; a nit comb (a specialized type)

沐 — to wash the hair (paired with 櫛 in grooming compounds)

比 — to compare; side by side (paired with 櫛 in 櫛比)

Among comb-related characters, 櫛 is the most literary and idiomatically rich. It lives primarily in set expressions where its image of regular, even teeth carries metaphorical weight.

Classical citations:

《莊子·天下》 (Zhuangzi)

「禹親自操橐耜，而九雜天下之川，腓無胈，脛無毛，沐甚雨，櫛疾風」

"Yu himself took up spade and basket, channeling the rivers of the world, his calves worn thin, his shins bare of hair — washed by driving rain, combed by fierce wind."

The earliest and most celebrated use of 櫛風沐雨, describing the Great Yu's tireless labor in controlling the floods. The image of wind as comb and rain as washwater originates here, and all subsequent uses of the idiom draw on this scene of selfless, bodily exhausted toil.

《史記·夏本紀》 (Records of the Grand Historian)

「沐甚雨，櫛疾風，置萬國」

"Washed by driving rain and combed by fierce wind, he established the ten thousand states."

Sima Qian's retelling of the same tradition, confirming 櫛風沐雨 as the canonical image of Yu's founding labor and fixing the idiom's association with the endurance required of those who build civilization.

《後漢書·班超傳》 (Book of the Later Han)

「櫛風沐雨，轉戰絕域」

"Combed by the wind and washed by the rain, fighting across the most distant frontiers."

A military use of the idiom, applied to Ban Chao's decades of campaigning in Central Asia — the classical extension of 즐풍목우 from flood-control labor to military endurance in hostile terrain.