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砣

tuó
noun #32,617

Meanings

  1. 1 steelyard weight (the sliding weight on a 杆秤 traditional balance)
  2. 2 stone roller (used to flatten roads or grain fields)
  3. 3 (verb) to grind or polish jade with an emery wheel

Examples

杆秤上的秤砣可以左右移动。
Gǎnchèng shàng de chèngtuó kěyǐ zuǒyòu yídòng.
The weight on a steelyard balance can slide back and forth.
工匠用砣砣琢磨这块玉。
Gōngjiàng yòng tuó zhuómó zhè kuài yù.
The craftsman polishes this jade with an emery wheel.

Tips

culture
The 秤砣 (chèngtuó) is the sliding weight that gives the traditional Chinese 杆秤 (gǎnchèng, hand-held steelyard balance) its precision — markets used these well into the 20th century. Hence the saying 秤砣虽小压千斤 'a steelyard weight is small but balances a thousand jin' = 'small but mighty'.
memory
砣 = 石 'stone' (radical) + 它 (tā, phonetic). The radical pins down 'something heavy and stone-like'; the phonetic shifts from tā → tuó (a common shift for the 它 phonetic series, e.g. 驼 'camel'). All real-world uses come back to a heavy round object: balance weight, road roller, grinding wheel.

Stroke Order

砣 tuó