畜 (chù): livestock

Meanings

1 livestock
2 domestic animal
3 beast (derogatory)

Characters

畜

chù

livestock; domestic animal

Examples

农场里养了很多家畜。

Nóngchǎng lǐ yǎng le hěn duō jiāchù.

The farm raises a lot of livestock.

六畜兴旺。

Liùchù xīngwàng.

May the six kinds of livestock thrive.

Tips

usage

The noun reading chù means livestock: 牲畜 (livestock), 家畜 (domestic animal), 畜生 (beast, also a coarse insult). The verb 'to raise animals' is the separate reading xù, as in 畜牧 (animal husbandry). The noun is far more common.

culture

六畜 (the six livestock) refers to the six traditional domestic animals: horse, cow, sheep, pig, dog, and chicken.

Components

radical

田 tián

field; farmland

Field radical on the bottom, the indexing semantic. The cross-and-square depicts a paddy divided by raised paths. Putting tethered animals 玄 above farmland 田 gives the original scene: animals kept on the farm. Modern readings split into chù 'livestock' (noun) and xù 'to raise' (verb).

semantic

玄 xuán

dark; mysterious; tied silk

Top component, originally a small bundle of twisted silk thread, here representing tethered animals tied up at the farm. The rope-and-tether image sits naturally over 田, picturing livestock kept on cultivated land. The same 玄 shows up in 弦 (bowstring) and 蓄 (store up), which carries the same domesticate-and-keep idea.