卦 guà divination
divination; fortune-telling
How to remember 卦: 圭 jade block + 卜 fortune teller = divination. With a green jade block on her table, the fortune teller at the night market reads my palm and charges ten dollars for divination.
Component breakdown
卦 = 圭 jade block + 卜 fortune teller
- 圭 jade block
- 卜 fortune teller
With a green jade block on her table, the fortune teller at the night market reads my palm and charges ten dollars for divination.
How it is used
- A divinatory trigram/hexagram from the I Ching - 八卦 (bāguà) the eight trigrams, 算卦 (suàn guà) to tell fortunes.
- In modern slang 八卦 means gossip / to gossip - 别八卦了 (bié bāguà le) stop gossiping - a hugely common colloquial sense.
- So 八卦 lives a double life: ancient trigrams, and everyday tabloid gossip.