p8nda
p8nda BETA
Home Dictionary Translate Flashcards

圬

wū
verb #69,640

Meanings

  1. 1 (archaic) to plaster; to whitewash a wall
  2. 2 (archaic) a plasterer's trowel

Examples

HSK 7-9
古文写了一个靠圬墙谋生的圬者。
Gǔwén xiě le yī gè kào wū qiáng móushēng de wūzhě.
A classical essay tells of a plasterer who made his living troweling walls.

Tips

history
圬 is archaic and not used independently in modern Chinese. It is famous from Han Yu's essay 圬者王承福传 ('Biography of Wang Chengfu the Plasterer'). The modern words are 抹墙 (to plaster a wall) and 泥瓦匠 (a plasterer).
register
Classical only - found in old prose and etymology notes, not in modern speech.

Components

radical
土 tǔ
earth; soil
土 the earth radical points to mud and plaster - the wet earth a plasterer spreads on walls.
phonetic
亏 kuī
deficient; to lose
亏 here stands for an old 于-type phonetic, giving the sound wū. It carries no 'deficit' meaning in this character.

Stroke Order

圬 wū