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铺

鋪
pū / pù
verb HSK 6 #4,969

Meanings

  1. 1 to spread; to lay out
  2. 2 to pave; to lay (a road, cable, floor)
  3. 3 to make (a bed); to spread (bedding)

Examples

请把床铺好。
Qǐng bǎ chuángpū hǎo.
Please make the bed.
工人们在铺路。
Gōngrénmen zài pū lù.
Workers are paving the road.
新闻铺天盖地地传了开。
Xīnwén pūtiāngàidì de chuán le kāi.
The news spread overwhelmingly far and wide.

Tips

usage
pū is the verb of laying things flat across a surface — bedding, paving, cabling, anything spread out evenly: 铺床 (make the bed), 铺路 (pave a road; also figurative: lay the groundwork), 铺设 (lay pipes / tracks), 铺平 (spread flat). The vivid idiom 铺天盖地 (literally 'spreading the sky, covering the earth') describes anything overwhelmingly all-pervasive.
mistakes
Two readings. pū is the verb 'spread / pave / lay' (this entry). Switch to 铺 (see the pù entry) for the noun senses: a shop (店铺, 商铺) and a berth or bunk (上铺, 卧铺, 床铺). Quick rule: action of spreading = pū, the thing spread / the counter spread with goods = pù.

Components

radical
钅 jīn
metal; gold (left radical form)
Left metal radical (Kangxi #167 金 in its 5-stroke contracted form). The 'pave, spread out' sense likely comes from spreading metal sheets or paving stones; the 'shop' sense (the alt pù reading) extended from the metal-fitted counter laid out with goods. Same radical groups 钱, 银, 铁, 锅.
phonetic
甫 fǔ
just; only just; man's name suffix
Right phonetic 甫 — supplies the sound, drifting to pū / pù through historical labial shift. The same phonetic anchors 捕 (catch), 哺 (feed), 浦 (riverbank), 葡 (grape) — recognising 甫 unlocks all of them as a sound family.

Stroke Order

铺 pū