noun

Meanings

  1. 1 phonetic stem; archaic 'full vessel / wine jar'
  2. 2 appears almost only as a component inside compound characters

Tips

history
Pictograph of a wide-bellied jar full to the brim — the top stroke is the lid, is the mouth, is the swollen body. From 'full vessel' it carried the abstract sense of fullness and overflow. The standalone character fell out of use; modern dictionaries list it only as a component.
usage
Hugely productive as a phonetic: (wealthy, roof + full jar), (good fortune, altar + full jar), (deputy, knife + full jar = halve a jar), (width of cloth), (press hard), (bat). All keep the 'fú' shell and many keep a faint 'fullness' flavour.

Components

pictograph
full vessel; phonetic stem
A pictograph that has fused: oracle and bronze forms drew a wide-bellied wine jar full to its lid — top stroke the lid, small box the mouth, wide square the swollen body. Read as a whole, not splittable into the visible ++. Heads the phonetic family , , , , , with the meaning brimming over.

Filed under radical (tián, #102) by convention. is not a separate component in , so no strokes are highlighted.

Stroke Order