Often paired with 梁 (beam, crossbeam), forming 棟梁, a classical idiom for “pillar of society.”

Phono-semantic compound:
木 (나무 목) — semantic, “wood, timber.”
東 (동녘 동) — phonetic, providing the sound.
Original sense: the main timber beam supporting the roof of a house. By extension, “pillar, backbone, central figure.”

동량(棟梁) — ridgepole and beam; figuratively, an essential person, a pillar of society
주동(主棟) — main beam of a house
국동(國棟) — figurative, the mainstay of a nation

Characters

Words

Vocabulary

pillar, post, column, to support, to hold up

to investigate, to examine, to check, to look into

root, foundation, basis, origin, cause, to take root

form, standard, rule, style, pattern

table, desk, plan, proposal, to think, to consider

branch, twig, item

to abandon, to discard, to give up, to throw away

board game, chess, Go

ridgepole, the main beam of a house

forest, woods, grove, dense, thick

to plant, to set up, to grow

sweetgum tree (Liquidambar formosana), maple tree

work, occupation, profession, task, business, enterprise, learning, studies, karma (in Buddhist context)

to the utmost, to exhaust, extreme, ultimate, end, utmost point

flower, glory, honor, prosperity, flourishing

to join, to put together, to build, to construct

roughly, generally, on the whole, outline, broad measure

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Chinese character

Explore 214 Chinese radicals and their derived characters. Sort by radical or stroke count, and view the complete list of official Hanja radicals.

Chinese characters (Hanja)

Chinese characters dictionary

棟

Etymology

Usage in Korean

Words that derived from 棟

Additional notes

Neighboring characters in the dictionary