煮 (zhǔ): to boil; to cook (in water)

Meanings

1 to boil; to cook (in water)
2 to stew; to simmer

Characters

煮

zhǔ

to boil; to cook

Examples

妈妈在煮饭。

Māma zài zhǔfàn.

Mom is cooking rice.

水煮开了。

Shuǐzhǔ kāi le.

The water has come to a boil.

我每天早上煮两个鸡蛋。

Wǒ měitiān zǎoshang zhǔ liǎng gè jīdàn.

I boil two eggs every morning.

煮面条只需要几分钟。

Zhǔ miàntiáo zhǐ xūyào jǐ fēnzhōng.

Cooking noodles only takes a few minutes.

Tips

usage

Chinese cooking methods: 煮 (boil), 炒 (stir-fry), 蒸 (zhēng, steam), 烤 (kǎo, roast/grill), 炸 (zhá, deep-fry), 煎 (jiān, pan-fry), 炖 (dùn, stew/braise). Each method has its own character.

memory

四点底 (four dots at the bottom, 灬) represents fire. 者 (zhě) is the phonetic component. Cooking over fire = to boil.

Components

radical

灬 huǒ

fire (bottom-form of 火)

Four-dot fire radical at the bottom — the standard form of 火 when it sits beneath a character (the dots are the flickering tongues). It indexes 煮 in the heat-and-cook family with 烧 to burn, 蒸 to steam, 熟 ripe/cooked, 烈 fierce. Fire under a phonetic = 'cook over flame', here specifically by boiling in water.

phonetic

者 zhě

one who; person (here phonetic)

Top is 者 'the one who…', supplying the sound — zhě drifting to zhǔ with regular tone shift. Same phonetic in 著 to write/notable, 暑 hot weather, 都 capital, 储 to store. Originally 者 may have depicted sugarcane or a stove with steam; either reading meshes with the cooking image once 灬 sits beneath it.