孵

fū
verb #20,389

Meanings

  1. 1 to hatch
  2. 2 to incubate (eggs)
  3. 3 to brood

Examples

HSK 6
Mǔjī xūyào sān zhōu shíjiān fū chū xiǎojī.
A hen needs three weeks to hatch her chicks.
HSK 6
Niǎo māma yìzhí zài cháo lǐ fū dàn.
The mother bird has been sitting on her eggs in the nest.
HSK 7-9
Nà méi kǒnglóng dàn bèi kēxuéjiā réngōng fūhuà.
That dinosaur egg was artificially incubated by scientists.

Tips

usage
孵 is most commonly seen in the compound 孵化 (to incubate/hatch) and the phrase 孵 蛋 (to sit on eggs). As a standalone verb, 孵 refers specifically to the incubation of eggs by birds or artificially.

Components

semantic
卵 luǎn
egg
Left 卵 - pictograph of fish or insect eggs laid in pairs, with two dots inside the curved walls picturing the embryos. Supplies the meaning: 孵 is the act of warming eggs until they hatch. Indexed under Kangxi #39 子 by tradition, taken from the child buried inside 孚 on the right.
phonetic
孚 fú
to brood; trust (here phonetic)
Right side 孚 supplies the sound - fú drifting to fū through a tone change. A perfect semantic match rides along: 孚 itself pictures a claw 爪 over a child 子, depicting a mother bird's foot on her nestlings. So 孵 stacks two brooding pictures - egg and mother-over-chick - into one verb for hatching.

Filed under radical 子 (zǐ, #39) by convention. 子 is not a separate component in 孵, so no strokes are highlighted.

Stroke Order

孵 fū