How to Write 踽 (jǔ) — Meaning “walking alone”

Imagine a lonely person walking with their foot (足) and looking like a mythical figure (禹). The shape of 禹 can be seen as a person with a hat and a long tail, moving slowly by themselves.

Write the left radical 足 first, keeping it narrow and balanced. The right part 禹 has nine strokes; make sure to write the top "swoop" stroke correctly and the bottom part with horizontal and vertical strokes. A common mistake is making the 足 radical too wide, which ruins the character's proportion.

踽 means walking alone, while 跽 means to kneel on the ground. Visually, 踽 has the right component 禹 (with multiple horizontal lines), whereas 跽 has the right component 忌 (with a top 己 and bottom 心). The character 䠀 is very rare and usually means to walk with a limp or to crouch, but it looks different because its right side is 堂.

踽 is almost exclusively used in the idiom 踽踽独行 (jǔ jǔ dú xíng), meaning to walk alone in a solitary manner. It appears in literary or poetic descriptions of loneliness and is not common in everyday conversation. You might encounter it in classical essays or modern expressive writing to create a vivid image of a person walking by themselves.

Common words containing 踽 include: 踽踽独行 (jǔ jǔ dú xíng) — to walk alone; to be solitary; 踽踽 (jǔ jǔ) — solitary; walking alone; 独行 (dú xíng) — to walk alone.