bound morpheme #44,099

Meanings

  1. 1 used in 葡萄 (grape)

Examples

Pútao shì hěn shòu huānyíng de shuǐguǒ.
Grapes are a very popular fruit.
Pútáoyá shì Ōuzhōu guójiā.
Portugal is a European country.

Tips

usage
Only used in 葡萄 (grape) and 葡萄牙 (Portugal). Never appears alone.

Components

radical
cǎo
grass; plant (top radical)
Top grass radical (3-stroke form) — the indexing component. Marks as a plant character, here a fruit-bearing vine. Anchors the word 葡萄 'grape' in the botanical family (, , , , apple). Both syllables of 葡萄 carry the top, a sign that the compound is a true plant name borrowed wholesale.
phonetic
to crawl; creep
Bottom supplies the sound — pú level-tone, no drift. Pleasingly, means 'to crawl, creep along the ground,' a perfect description of how a grapevine actually grows; so the phonetic doubles as a faint semantic hint. 葡萄 is a Han-era loanword from a Central Asian language (likely Bactrian), written with these two sound-tagged plant characters.

Stroke Order