Sinograph Addenda · Signs

出go-out · chū · to go out, come forth, emerge

go-out

Where it comes from

The old graphs draw a footprint climbing over the lip of a pit or dwelling-hollow — the stated account: stepping OUT. Worn smooth, the foot now looks like twin sprouts, but the word never wavered: emergence, exit, and everything that comes forth — words from mouths, troops from gates, the sun from the east. Taught in the verb-and-object chapter.

How to remember it

A foot over the pit’s edge: going out.

In the wild