榻 (tà): couch

Meanings

1 couch
2 low narrow bed; daybed
3 (literary) bed

Characters

榻

tà

low couch; daybed

Examples

客人请上榻。

Kèrén qǐng shàng tà.

Please make yourself comfortable on the couch (lit.: please get on the daybed).

他病倒在榻上。

Tā bìngdǎo zài tà shàng.

He fell ill on his bed.

Tips

history

榻 originally meant a long, narrow, low couch used for sitting and napping in classical Chinese homes — see 《玉台新咏》 'move my crystal couch / 移我琉璃榻'. The radical 木 (wood) shows it was a piece of wooden furniture. Today 榻 is mostly literary, surviving in compounds: 病榻 (sickbed), 卧榻 (bed), 下榻 (to lodge / put up at).

usage

下榻 (xiàtà) 'to lodge at' is the most common modern usage — used in formal news for where dignitaries are staying: 总统下榻于钓鱼台国宾馆 'the President is lodging at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse'.

Components

radical

木 mù

tree; wood

Left tree radical — the wooden frame of furniture. A 榻 is a narrow low couch or daybed for reclining and entertaining guests, traditionally built of wood. Same indexing radical as 椅 chair, 桌 table, 床 bed, 柜 cabinet.

semantic

日 rì

sun; day

Upper-right sun — here it does not carry the literal 'sun' sense but forms the top half of the right-side phonetic block 㣋. With 羽 below, the two pieces together supply the sound tà and sketch a flat tucked-under shape that mirrors the couch's low profile.

phonetic

羽 yǔ

feathers

Lower-right feathers — paired wings folded flat. With 日 above, the block delivers the sound tà through historical sound shift, and the folded-wings image faintly echoes the daybed: feathers tucked close, body laid out flat. Same phonetic family: 塌 to collapse, 蹋 to step on.