缶 (fǒu) · earthenware jar with a small mouth (round-bellied…

Meanings

1 earthenware jar with a small mouth (round-bellied wine or water vessel)
2 a clay percussion instrument struck to keep time

Characters

缶

fǒu

earthenware jar

Examples

HSK 7-9

考古队发掘出一只完整的陶缶。

Kǎogǔ duì fājué chū yī zhī wánzhěng de táo fǒu.

The archaeological team unearthed a complete pottery jar.

HSK 7-9

蔺相如请秦王击缶以助兴。

Lìn Xiāngrú qǐng Qín wáng jī fǒu yǐ zhùxìng.

Lin Xiangru asked the King of Qin to strike the fou to liven up the gathering.

Tips

history

缶 famously appears in the Lin Xiangru / Qin king episode in 《史记·廉颇蔺相如列传》: when the Qin king demanded that Zhao's king play the zither, Lin retaliated by forcing the Qin king to strike a fou, both an instrument and a humiliation, since fou were associated with peasant revelry.

culture

The 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony featured 2008 performers drumming on glowing 缶-style vessels, modern fou modelled on bronze-age examples. As a radical, 缶 marks pottery: 罐 (jar), 缸 (vat), 缺 (incomplete, originally a chipped pot).

Components

pictograph

缶 fǒu

earthenware jar; pot

A pictograph of a round-bellied earthenware jar with a small mouth at the top and a wide base below, a clay vessel used in ancient China to hold wine or grain. 缶 is itself a Kangxi radical (#121), indexing pottery characters like 缸 vat and 罐 pot.

Radical

Earthen Jar Kangxi #121

Modest productivity but a clear semantic signal: anything filed under 缶 is a clay or pottery container. Most learner-relevant compounds, 缸 (vat), 罐 (jar), 缺 (lacking, from 'chipped jar'), keep 缶 on one side. The character itself is rare in modern speech outside historical and archaeological contexts.