measure word HSK 7-9 #17,523

Meanings

  1. 1 mu (unit of area, approx. 667 square meters or 1/15 hectare)

Examples

Zhèkuài dì yǒu wǔshí mǔ.
This piece of land is fifty mu.
Yī mǔ dì kěyǐ zhòng duōshǎo shuǐdào?
How much rice can be planted on one mu of land?

Tips

usage
1 ≈ 667 m² ≈ 0.165 acres. Still widely used in rural China for measuring farmland. 15 = 1 hectare.

Components

radical
tóu
lid; top stroke (Kangxi radical)
Top is the lid radical (Kangxi #8) — a short horizontal stroke with a dot above, an abstract cap that sits atop many chars (, , ). It is the indexing radical of by convention rather than by meaning; the lid simply marks where the field below is enclosed.
semantic
tián
field; cultivated land
Bottom is the field pictograph — a bird's-eye view of plots divided by paths, the iconic image of farmland in oracle bones. It carries the entire meaning: is a unit for measuring fields, the classical mu (about 1/15 hectare). The top lid is just a graphic cap; the field below is what the character is really about.

Stroke Order