抔

póu
verb

Meanings

  1. 1 to scoop up in both cupped hands
  2. 2 a handful (of earth)

Examples

HSK 7-9
Yì póu zhī tǔ wèi gān, liù chǐ zhī gū hé tuō.
What about a single handful of earth on the late emperor's grave?

Tips

history
抔 is not used independently in modern Chinese. It lives on in the literary phrase 一抔土 (a single handful of earth, i.e. a humble grave), made famous by Luo Binwang's Tang manifesto. It joins the hand radical 扌 with the phonetic 不.
register
Classical and literary only; today it appears in old quotations and as a measure word for earth in elevated writing, not in speech.

Components

radical
扌 shǒu
hand
The left-side hand radical 扌 (the side form of 手) marks this as an action of the hands - cupping them to scoop something up.
phonetic
不 bù
not
Supplies the sound only; 不 here is purely phonetic (reading drifted to póu) and carries none of its negation meaning.

No stroke data for 抔; the glyph shown is your device font, so component strokes can't be highlighted.

Stroke Order

抔 póu