Sinograph Addenda · Signs

公duke · gōng · duke; public, common

duke

Where it comes from

Dividing 八eight · bā · eight; (original sense) to divide above a closed circle meaning “private” — Han Fei’s stated reading: to turn one’s back on the private is the public. The word carries both senses at once in the classics: the feudal rank (“Duke of Zhou”) and everything held in common. Taught in the making-it-happen chapter.

How to remember it

The parting strokes push the private circle away: what is not kept for oneself is public — and the duke is supposed to embody it.

In the wild