故
- cause, reason;
- affair, matter, circumstance;
- old, former;
Etymology
Phono-semantic compound:
攴 (strike, action radical) - semantic element, related to events or actions.
古 (old, ancient) - phonetic element “고.”
Original sense: “reason, cause of an event,” later extended to “affair,” “incident,” and by euphemism “death.”
Usage in Korean
故人 (고인) — the deceased, “the late …”
事故 (사고) — accident, incident
故鄕 (고향) — hometown, native place
故國 (고국) — native country, homeland
原故 (원고) — reason, cause
無故 (무고) — without cause, falsely, unjustly
Words that derived from 故
Additional notes
In Korean usage, 故 most commonly appears in the euphemism for the dead (故人). Newspapers and memorial contexts almost exclusively use it with this meaning.
In Classical Chinese, 故 often marked “therefore, thus,” functioning as a conjunction: e.g., 故曰… (“Therefore it is said…”).
The “old” sense of 故 is still alive in compounds like 故鄕 (“old village, hometown”).
