Sinograph Addenda · Signs

state

Name	state
Reads	guó
Means	state, country
Taught in	12 · Making it happen

Where it comes from

The outer square 囗 is a wall. Inside stands an older character that was itself “state”: a bounded patch of ground with a spear over it — territory under arms. Wall the armed ground in and you have 國, the state as the thing its borders defend. Taught in the making-it-happen chapter.

How to remember it

A spear inside a wall: the state.

In the wild

欲治其國者，先齊其家。yù zhì qí guó zhě, xiān qí qí jiā"whoever would set the state in order must first set the household in order" — the Great Learning's chain of scale: fix the near thing before the far one.

Great Learning (Daxue). urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1d0052:043:1a · license: attribution.