釜 (fǔ): cauldron

Measure Word

一口釜 kǒu

Meanings

1 cauldron
2 kettle
3 ancient cooking vessel
4 an ancient unit of dry measure

Characters

釜

fǔ

cauldron; ancient cooking vessel

Examples

HSK 5

釜底抽薪是一个常用的成语。

Fǔdǐchōuxīn shì yí gè chángyòng de chéngyǔ.

Fudichouxin (taking the firewood out from under the cauldron) is a common idiom.

HSK 7-9

煮豆燃豆萁，豆在釜中泣。

Zhǔ dòu rán dòuqí, dòu zài fǔ zhōng qì.

Boiling beans by burning beanstalks, the beans weep inside the cauldron.

Tips

history

釜 names a round-bottomed iron or bronze cooking pot of the Han dynasty, set over a 灶 (stove). It survives in 釜底抽薪 ('pull the firewood out from under the pot' - solve a problem at its root) and the famous 釜中泣 line from Cao Zhi's 七步诗 (Seven-Step Poem).

memory

釜 sits on the 金 (metal) radical, signalling its identity as a metal vessel - though early ones were bronze and pottery, later ones iron.

Components

radical

金 jīn

metal; gold

Bottom is the metal radical, contracted from 8 strokes to 6 to fit under 父 - a typical squeeze when 金 takes the lower position. It anchors 釜 in the metalwork family: the cauldron is a cast-iron or bronze cooking vessel. Idiom 釜底抽薪 'pull firewood from under the cauldron' = remove the root cause.

phonetic

父 fù

father

Top supplies the sound: fù to fǔ (tone shift only). 父 originally pictured a hand holding a stone axe - the patriarch-as-tool-user image. It is purely phonetic here, although the 'authoritative head of household' flavour fits the cauldron's status as the family-feeding centrepiece.