ChiramiThis kanji is a person stuck in a box (囚)
囚 (shuu) means a prisoner, or being held captive, and it looks exactly like that: 人, a person, shut inside 囗, a box. Plenty of kanji stories are only memory aids. This one is the real history.
What the kanji says
The outer box is 囗, an enclosure. It looks like 口 (kuchi), mouth, but it’s bigger, and it always wraps around something. Japanese calls it くにがまえ (kunigamae), the “国 frame”, after 国 (kuni), country, which is written with one.
Inside is 人 (hito), a person. Here it keeps its full shape. On the left side of a kanji it squeezes into 亻, as in 休む (yasumu), to rest, and 体 (karada), body.
The Shuowen Jiezi, a Chinese dictionary from around 100 CE, explains 囚 in a few words: to hold captive, “a person inside an enclosure”. Modern scholars agree. 囚 is a compound of meaning, and its first sense was to lock someone up. “Prisoner”, the person locked up, grew out of that.
More things in boxes
Once you’ve spotted 囚, you’ll notice other boxed kanji. 困, as in 困る (komaru), to be in trouble, is 木, wood, inside 囗. Some scholars think it first meant a doorway’s threshold, the wooden sill that blocks the way, and that from “blocked” it came to mean being stuck in a hard spot.
Not every box is a box, though. 四 (yon), four, only looks like one: some scholars think it began as a drawing of breath coming out of the mouth and nose.
How to use it
その映画は脱獄する囚人の話だ。
Sono eiga wa datsugoku suru shuujin no hanashi da.
That film is about a prisoner who breaks out of jail.
姫は囚われの身だった。
Hime wa toraware no mi datta.
The princess was being held captive.
彼はまだ過去に囚われている。
Kare wa mada kako ni torawarete iru.
He's still trapped in the past.
常識にとらわれずに考えよう。
Joushiki ni torawarezu ni kangaeyou.
Let's think outside the box.
- しゅう (shuu) is the reading in compounds: 囚人 (shuujin), a prisoner, and 死刑囚 (shikeishuu), a prisoner on death row.
- とらわれる (torawareru), to be caught, can be written 囚われる, or 捕らわれる with 捕, to catch. It’s often used for being trapped by an idea or a feeling, and in that sense it’s usually written in kana, as in the last example.
- 囚人 isn’t the official word. It’s the everyday name, and you’ll meet it in stories and films, but Japan’s Penal Code dropped it in 1995. The official term is 受刑者 (jukeisha), a person serving a sentence.
- Don’t confuse 囗 with 口. The enclosure surrounds the other parts; 口, mouth, is a part on its own.
Words with the same kanji
| Word | Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 囚人 | shuujin | prisoner |
| 死刑囚 | shikeishuu | prisoner on death row |
| 模範囚 | mohanshuu | model prisoner |
| 囚われる | torawareru | to be caught; to be trapped (by an idea) |
| 囚われの身 | toraware no mi | captive |
Remember it
A person (人) with four walls around them and no door: 囚. Whenever you feel boxed in, picture it.
The kanji in this lesson
Tap Draw it to watch the stroke order. Numbers show where each stroke starts.