(kù) - cool, stylish in Mandarin
kùTraditional: 酷
Translation
cool, stylish
Word origin
Originally 酉 (a wine vessel) with 告 (gào, phonetic), meaning strong of wine and then harsh or cruel. The modern sense of stylish is a twentieth-century sound loan from English cool.
- Origin
- phono-semantic compound, later sound loan
- Root
- 酉 (wine vessel) + 告 (gào, phonetic)
Stroke order
酷
Examples
。
That jacket of yours is really cool.
摩。
He thinks riding a motorbike is cool.
。
This band's new song is very cool.
。
The way she speaks is cool and detached.
。
That was a seriously cool match.
酷 (kù) is one of the neatest loans in the language: it already existed, meaning harsh or extreme, and it happens to sound like the English cool. Modern speakers took the sound and the meaning came with it.
The old sense has not gone anywhere. 残酷 is cruel, 酷热 is punishing heat, 酷刑 is torture. Those are written words and nobody hears the borrowed sense in them.
The trap is temperature. 酷 never means cool as in slightly cold; that is 凉. And a cool person is 很酷, not 很凉, which would mean they had gone off.
Where this fits
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酷: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Mandarin word "酷" (cool, stylish): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 55.