The Common Knowledge of the Masses

A large circle of villagers, an ancient stone pillar, a vast meadow
The phrase describes a truth shared by a multitude, represented by a large circle of people gathered in common understanding.

Imagine a large crowd or a multitude of people gathered together. This sense of a mass of people is captured by the character 眾, which represents the masses, a crowd, or everyone.

This character serves as a foundation for the phrase 眾所周知. The phrase describes something that is common knowledge, meaning it is as everyone knows or is well-known to all. It is built from several distinct characters that work together to convey this idea of universal understanding.

The phrase incorporates the character 所, which refers to a place or location. Within this character, the component 戶, meaning door, serves as a phonetic element, while 斤, a traditional unit of weight known as a catty or jin, acts as the semantic component.

To complete the idea of knowledge, the phrase uses 知, meaning to know, to understand, or to comprehend. This character is composed of three parts: 大, meaning big or large; 口, referring to the mouth; and 子, meaning a child or offspring.

Finally, the phrase includes 周, which means to circle or to encircle. When these elements are combined into 眾所周知, they form a complete expression used to state that something is known by the entire multitude.

Explore the full etymology graph of 眾所周知 on etymfun.com.

Based on Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0) and the sources listed on etymfun.com; written by a local model and fact-checked statement by statement against them. Illustration generated locally.

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