播

bō
verb HSK 6 #3,077

Meanings

  1. 1 to sow; to broadcast
  2. 2 to spread

Examples

HSK 3
Xīnwén zhèngzài bōchū.
The news is being broadcast.
HSK 5
Zhíbō hěn shòu huānyíng.
Live streaming is very popular.
HSK 6
Zhè zhǒng bìngdú zhǔyào tōngguò kōngqì chuánbō.
This kind of virus spreads mainly through the air.

Tips

usage
播 is used in: 广播 (broadcast/radio), 播放 (to play/broadcast), 直播 (livestream), 播出 (to air), 传播 (to spread). 直播 (livestreaming) is a massive cultural phenomenon in China.

Components

radical
扌 shǒu
hand (radical form)
Left hand radical - simplified 3-stroke form of 手. The indexing radical of 播. Sowing seeds and broadcasting are both hand actions: scattering grain by hand across a field. Same radical heads 抓, 拿, 摆, 撒 - the family of hand-driven verbs that includes 撒 'scatter', 播's near-cousin.
phonetic
番 fān
turn; foreign; paw print
Right component supplies the sound (fān → bō, a regular Old Chinese drift between labial initials in the same nasal-stop family - same shift as 班/般). 番 itself shows 釆 'animal paw' over 田 'field', the picture of an animal walking across a field leaving paw prints - a faint semantic echo of seeds being scattered in rows. Same phonetic in 翻 (flip), 蕃 (lush), 潘 (surname).

Stroke Order

播 bō