The two drank together, chatting and laughing merrily.
Tips
usage
In modern Chinese, 酌 rarely appears alone. It is most common in formal written compounds: 酌情 (zhuóqíng, at one's discretion), 斟酌 (zhēnzhuó, to weigh up/deliberate), and 对酌 (duì zhuó, to drink together).
Left 酉 — pictograph of a narrow-necked wine jar with liquid inside. The indexing radical that puts 酌 in the alcohol family alongside 酒, 醉, 醋, 酱. Everything in this family involves fermented liquid being poured or aged in a jug.
Right 勺 — pictograph of a ladle with a single dot for the liquid inside. Combined with the wine jar on the left, the image is literally 'ladling wine from a jar' — the etymological scene that gave 酌 its meanings 'to pour wine, drink, deliberate.' Faint phonetic echo too: sháo drifted to zhuó.
