zhú
noun #27,733

Measure Word

gēn

Meanings

  1. 1 candle
  2. 2 (literary) to illuminate

Examples

Tíngdiàn le, wǒ diǎn le yī gēn zhú.
The power went out, so I lit a candle.
Zhúguāng zài hēi'àn zhōng yáoyè.
The candlelight flickered in the darkness.

Tips

usage
is mostly used in compounds: 蜡烛 (làzhú, candle), 烛光 (zhúguāng, candlelight), 烛台 (zhútái, candlestick). Standalone sounds literary or poetic.

Components

radical
huǒ
fire
Left — pictograph of flames rising from a base, a person-like silhouette with sparks at the sides. As the indexing radical it carries the literal meaning: a candle is a small steady flame. Same radical groups with lamp, burn, flame, stove.
phonetic
chóng
insect; worm
Right supplies the sound — the traditional had (shǔ, silkworm) here as the phonetic; the simplification kept just the part, which still echoes the original zhú-family reading. Same phonetic logic appears in (zhuó) muddy, (chù) to touch, all once sharing this Shu/Zhu sound family.

Stroke Order

zhú