碗 (wǎn): bowl

Meanings

1 bowl

Characters

碗

wǎn

bowl

Contains 石 (stone) — bowls were originally stone vessels.

Examples

请给我一碗米饭。

Qǐng gěi wǒ yì wǎn mǐfàn.

Please give me a bowl of rice.

碗里还有汤。

Wǎn lǐ hái yǒu tāng.

There is still soup in the bowl.

吃完饭要洗碗。

Chī wán fàn yào xǐ wǎn.

You need to wash the dishes after eating.

Tips

usage

碗 is both a noun (bowl) and a measure word for bowls of food: 一碗饭 (a bowl of rice), 两碗面 (two bowls of noodles). 洗碗 means "to wash dishes" — not just bowls.

culture

In Chinese dining etiquette, you should never stick your chopsticks upright in a bowl of rice — it resembles incense sticks at a funeral and is considered very bad luck.

Components

radical

石 shí

stone; rock

Left indexing stone radical 石 (Kangxi #112) — pictograph of a rock under an overhang. Anchors 碗 in the stone / hard-material family alongside 砖 (brick), 碎 (shatter), 磁 (magnet). Bowls were originally hewn from stone or fired clay before porcelain became common, so the radical reflects the material rather than the shape.

phonetic

宛 wǎn

as if; winding

Right component supplies the sound: 宛 wǎn → wǎn (exact match). Adds a faint semantic flavour — 宛 means 'curving / hollow under a roof,' exactly the shape of a bowl: a curved hollow vessel. Same phonetic in 婉 wǎn (graceful), 腕 wàn (wrist), 惋 wǎn (regret).