What does 경 mean for sight seeing and scenery?

Question

What does 경 mean? Is there a root meaning?

경치 - scenery, view

구경하다 - to go sightseeing

Also, is there a meaning for 구 in verb (to go sightseeing) ?

Answer 1

경 comes from the Chinese word 景, which in Modern Standard Mandarin is pronounced jǐng, and in Standard Cantonese ging². This is also used in Japanese in its on'yomi reading as けい (kei).

On its own, this hanja is given the eumhun 볕 경 gyeong as in "sunshine/sunbeams". However, this meaning has extended to mean "view/sight/scenery" in modern Korean, Japanese, and Chinese, and this extension happened very early on.

구경 is already attested in Middle Korean as 구겨ᇰ〮. It is believed to derive from a hanja-based collocation 求景 = search + view/sight/scenery = sightseeing. This is not used in modern Chinese at all, nor in modern Japanese.