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术

術
shù / zhú
noun #2,996

Meanings

  1. 1 method; technique
  2. 2 art; skill

Examples

他对艺术很感兴趣。
Tā duì yìshù hěn gǎnxìngqù.
He is very interested in art.
这个手术很成功。
Zhège shǒushù hěn chénggōng.
This surgery was very successful.

Tips

usage
术 rarely stands alone. Key compounds: 技术 (jìshù, technology), 艺术 (yìshù, art), 手术 (shǒushù, surgery), 武术 (wǔshù, martial arts), 学术 (xuéshù, academic).
register
Modern senses (method, art, technique) all read shù. The character has a second reading zhú used only in a small set of traditional-medicine plant names — 白术 (báizhú) and 苍术 (cāngzhú), rhizomes used in Chinese medicine. If you are not in a TCM context, default to shù.

Components

radical
木 mù
tree; wood
The tree radical forms the body. 术 originally referred to a kind of plant (atractylodes); the wood-radical is the lingering trace of that botanical sense. The full simplified form merges 術 (technique) into 术, giving the modern 'art/method' meanings.
ideograph
丶 zhǔ
dot marker
A small dot in the upper-right corner — an abstract differentiating marker that distinguishes 术 from 木 and 本. It carries no real-world depiction; it is purely a position-marker pinning this glyph apart from its tree-family neighbours.

Stroke Order

术 shù