窑 (yáo): kiln; oven

Meanings

1 kiln; oven
2 cave dwelling
3 (colloquial) brothel

Characters

窑

yáo

kiln; cave dwelling

Examples

这些陶器是在传统窑里烧制的。

Zhèxiē táoqì shì zài chuántǒng yáo lǐ shāo zhì de.

These pottery pieces were fired in a traditional kiln.

陕北有很多窑洞。

Shǎn běi yǒu hěnduō yáo dòng.

There are many cave dwellings in northern Shaanxi.

Tips

culture

窑洞 (yáodòng, cave dwelling) is a traditional type of housing carved into loess plateaus in northwestern China, especially in Shaanxi and Gansu. They are warm in winter and cool in summer.

Components

radical

穴 xué

cave; hole

Top 穴 — pictograph of a cave dwelling, a roof over a divided opening. As the indexing radical it places 窑 with cave/cavity chars: 空 empty, 窗 window, 穿 pierce, 窝 nest. A traditional 窑 is a kiln dug into a hillside — quite literally a fired cave.

semantic

缶 fǒu

earthen jar; pot

Bottom 缶 — pictograph of a wide-bellied earthen jar for water and wine. Below the cave radical it pictures pottery fired in a hillside kiln — the original sense of 窑. Same component drives 罐 jar, 缸 vat. The kiln meaning later extended to cave dwelling and, slangily, brothel.