noun #10,766

Meanings

  1. 1 government office; official residence
  2. 2 mansion; prefecture

Examples

Zhèngfǔ chūtái le xīn de zhèngcè.
The government introduced new policies.
Zhè shì yī zuò gǔlǎo de wáng fǔ.
This is an ancient royal mansion.

Tips

usage
is in 政府 (zhèngfǔ, government), 总统府 (zǒngtǒngfǔ, presidential palace), and (wángfǔ, prince's mansion). Historically it referred to a prefecture-level administrative unit.

Components

radical
广 yǎn
shelter; building radical
Top-left shelter radical 广 — pictograph of a roof attached to a wall on one side, the indexing component. Marks as a building or institution, specifically a government office or official residence (政府 government, prince's mansion). Same radical heads temple, storehouse, bed — all sheltered spaces.
phonetic
to hand over; pay (here phonetic, with semantic flavour)
Tucked under the roof sits person plus hand, depicting one person handing something to another. Supplies the sound: fù shifts to fǔ, tone change only. Faint semantic bonus: a is exactly the building where documents and authority are handed over.

Stroke Order