溥 (pǔ): broad; vast; widespread

Meanings

1 broad; vast; widespread
2 (literary) universal, = 普
3 Pǔ (surname; e.g. 溥仪, the last Qing emperor)

Characters

溥

pǔ

broad; widespread; surname

Examples

溥天之下，莫非王土。

Pǔ tiān zhīxià, mòfēi wáng tǔ.

Throughout all under heaven, none is not the king's land. (Book of Songs)

末代皇帝溥仪生于1906年。

Mò dài huángdì Pǔyí shēngyú yī jiǔ líng liù nián.

The last emperor Puyi was born in 1906.

Tips

history

Phono-semantic compound: 氵 (water) gives the imagery of something flowing wide, 尃 (fū, 'spread out') gives both sound and the 'broadcast widely' sense. The classical reading was 'water spreading out vastly', which generalised to 'broad, universal'. In literary texts 溥 is a near-synonym of 普.

culture

The most famous bearer is 爱新觉罗·溥仪 (Aisin-Gioro Puyi, 1906-1967), the last emperor of the Qing dynasty and protagonist of Bertolucci's film The Last Emperor. The Aisin-Gioro royal house used 溥 as a generation name — Puyi's brothers were 溥杰, 溥任, 溥伟.

Components

radical

氵 shuǐ

water (radical form)

Three-drop water radical on the left — the indexing radical. Lends the imagery of water spreading out across a flat plain that motivates the 'broad, universal' sense. Same radical heads 河, 海, 湖, 流, 浪, 浦, where each draws its meaning from a property of water.

phonetic

尃 fū

to spread out (archaic, here phonetic)

Right side is 尃, archaic form of 敷 'to spread, distribute'. Supplies the sound (fū → pǔ, common bilabial drift in this phonetic family) and reinforces meaning: water + spreading = broad. The same stem feeds 博, 搏, 薄, 缚, 傅 — all share the 'spread out / wide-reaching' flavour.