苟
surname Gou; (literary) if indeed; (bound form) careless; negligent; (bound form) temporarily
Closest English meanings
careless·if·merely
The Calligrapher — Sū Shì 苏轼
Song literatus whose spontaneous running script shaped the literati ideal.
Song calligrapher (1037–1101), master of running script/regular script — Song poet-statesman and polymath whose expressive running script made personality, not rules, the point. Song dynasty
Cultural Story
The Analects turns the word positive by negation: if only a man sets his heart on humaneness, Confucius says, no evil will come of him, the little particle meaning if only. Meanwhile the refusal to accept a muddled, hand-to-mouth existence, to drag out an ignoble life when duty called, made the character a byword for moral slacking.
Common words & phrases
- 苟且 drift along · careless
- 苟同 agree without conviction
- 一丝不苟 meticulous · conscientious
- 苟活 live on in degradation
Read the story behind the character
A typographer praised for a flawless font spec sheet gets called meticulous to the last pixel, an editor refuses to approve a sloppy caption, a diary entry vows not to merely drift through the year again, and a couple argues politely, each declining to fully agree, not daring to concur, with the other's relocation plans.
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