chǔ
pestle
Phonosemantic compound. 木 represents the meaning and 午 represents the sound. Originally written as 午, a pictograph of a pestle used for pounding rice.
Evolution

Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Qin dynasty (221-206 BC)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernDefinitions
Most common words with 杵
Freq. | Word | Meaning |
---|---|---|
pestle | ||
blood bath | ||
to study diligently | ||
to study diligently |
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*t.qʰaʔ | tsyhoX | chǔ | pestle |
Statistics
Not found in HSK word list
4776th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 8 |
Unicode | U+6775 |
Shuowen | “杵,舂杵也。从木,午聲。” |
Sources
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