p8nda
p8nda BETA
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剥

剝
bō / bāo
verb #5,457

Meanings

  1. 1 to strip; to peel off (a layer, coating, or surface)
  2. 2 to expropriate; to deprive (rights, property)
  3. 3 to exploit (labor)

Examples

资本主义剥削工人的劳动。
Zīběnzhǔyì bōxuē gōngrén de láodòng.
Capitalism exploits the labour of its workers.
他被剥夺了十年的政治权利。
Tā bèi bōduó le shí nián de zhèngzhì quánlì.
He was stripped of his political rights for ten years.
旧墙上的油漆正在剥落。
Jiù qiáng shàng de yóuqī zhèngzài bōluò.
The paint on the old wall is flaking off.

Tips

usage
The bō reading is bookish or institutional. Three flavours: (1) physical surface peel — 剥落, 剥离 (paint/coating flakes off, a layer peels away); (2) social/political stripping — 剥削 (exploit), 剥夺 (deprive of rights); (3) chengyu — 抽丝剥茧 (to unravel layer by layer).
memory
Memory trick: bāo is what your hands do in the kitchen (open vowel, hands open the orange). bō is what the state or a layer of paint does (rounded vowel, formal and abstract). Same character, two registers — the higher you climb on the abstraction ladder, the more it flips to bō.

Components

radical
刂 dāo
knife (right-side form of 刀)
Knife radical on the right — the right-side form of 刀, the indexing radical of 剥. To 剥 is to peel, strip, flay, skin — every sense involves a blade separating outer layer from inner. Same radical anchors 切 cut, 划 stroke, 刷 brush, 剪 scissors, 副 deputy — the wide blade-and-cut family.
phonetic
录 lù
to record (here phonetic)
Left side 录 supplies the sound: lù drifted to bāo with substantial Old Chinese onset shift. 录 originally pictured water dripping from a piece of carved wood — fitting 剥 (peel, strip), where bark or skin is being stripped away. Same phonetic also gives 绿 (green) and 禄 (salary).

Stroke Order

剥 bō