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薄

bó / báo
adjective #5,281

Meanings

  1. 1 slight; weak; meager
  2. 2 ungenerous; unkind; harsh
  3. 3 to despise; to belittle (literary verb)

Examples

我们东线的防守太薄弱了。
Wǒmen dōngxiàn de fángshǒu tài bóruò le.
Our defenses on the eastern front are too weak.
老师不应该厚此薄彼。
Lǎoshī bù yīnggāi hòucǐbóbǐ.
A teacher should not show partiality to some students over others.
他只是靠微薄的工资过日子的普通工人。
Tā zhǐshì kào wēibó de gōngzī guò rìzi de pǔtōng gōngrén.
He's just an ordinary worker living on a meager salary.

Tips

usage
The bó reading is the abstract/figurative cousin of báo, and it lives almost entirely in compounds. Strength-thin: 薄弱 (frail), 单薄 (flimsy), 稀薄 (rarefied). Quantity-thin: 微薄, 菲薄 (meager). Character-thin: 刻薄 (harsh, unkind), 轻薄 (frivolous). Idiomatic: 如履薄冰, 厚积薄发, 厚此薄彼.
memory
Pinyin tone hook: báo has a long, open vowel — like the wide thin sheet you're describing. bó is short and clipped — like a thin little something you barely have. So: sheets of paper get the long báo; salaries and defences get the clipped bó.

Components

radical
艹 cǎo
grass; plant
Grass radical on top — three strokes evoking two sprouts side by side, the standing form of 艸. It supplies meaning: 薄 originally referred to thin reeds and slim plant stalks, then generalised to 'thin, slight, weak' — including 薄荷 (mint), 薄饼 (thin pancake) and 单薄 (flimsy). Same radical anchors a vast plant family.
phonetic
溥 pǔ
broad; widespread
溥 supplies the sound, drifting tone to báo / bó. Same phonetic stem also feeds 博 (broad), 簿 (booklet) and 搏 (grapple). 溥 itself is 氵 + 尃 'spread water' — broad and thin — which echoes the 'thin' meaning of 薄. Useful both as sound and as a faint semantic flavour.

Stroke Order

薄 bó