poor / destitute / to use up / to exhaust / thoroughly / extremely / (coll.) persistently and pointlessly

= + : Cupid (qu) exhausted (穷) his bank account and is very poor (穷). He has nowhere to go and nothing to do anymore. In the engine's kitchen ((e)ng2) he creates a big cave painting (穴) out of boredom. Idly he paints a big power button (力) wishing that upon hitting it, money would rain down on him.

穷 character breakdown

surname Li
power / force / strength / ability / strenuously

= + 丿 : Mnemonic symbol: a power button.

Li Qingzhao (li) just had a shower in the space station's bathroom (Ø4) and wants to use the hair dryer, but there's no plug, just the bare end of the cable! She uses all her power to build an electricity plug, and for the two pins she uses a plough (㇆) and a banana (丿). Finally she hits a big power button (力) to turn the power on.
cave / cavity / hole / acupuncture point / Taiwan pr. [xue4]

= + : Xu Xian presents his newest piece of art: Cave paintings painted on a gigantic eight-ball. Somehow he managed to set it up inside the elevators entrance. For his great artistic achievement, he gained a honorary doctor, and proudly wears his hard earned graduation cap.

Characters with 穷 as component

穷 is not used as a component in another character.

Words with 穷

more and more emerge / innumerable succession / breeding like flies (idiom)
mountain and river exhausted (idiom); at the end of the line / nowhere to go
leaving a rich aftertaste / (fig.) memorable / lingering in memory
impoverished / backward both economically and culturally
to bewail one's poverty / to complain about being hard up / to pretend to be poor
it will cause no end of trouble (idiom)
to endure poverty stoically
the country weakened and the people empoverished (idiom)
lit. the assassin's dagger, concealed in a map scroll, is suddenly revealed when the map is unrolled (referring to the attempted assassination of Ying Zheng 嬴政[Ying2 Zheng4] by Jing Ke 荊軻|荆轲[Jing1 Ke1] in 227 BC) (idiom) / fig. malicious intent suddenly becomes apparent
to give sympathy to the rich and relief to the poor (idiom)
Song Renqiong (1909-2005), general of the People's Liberation Army
if you beat the snake without killing it, endless evils will ensue (idiom)
help the starving but not the poor (idiom)
endless / boundless / inexhaustible
poor but with great ambitions (idiom) / poor but principled
poor and with low expectations / poverty stunts ambition
extraordinary strength / super strong / strong as an ox

Sentences with 穷

dà
xia̅n
fǎ
lì
wú
qióng