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镂

鏤
lòu
verb

Meanings

  1. 1 to engrave; to carve (in metal, jade, or wood)
  2. 2 hard steel (literary)

Examples

锲而不舍，金石可镂。
Qièérbùshě, jīnshí kě lòu.
Keep chiseling without giving up, and even metal and stone can be carved.
屏风上镂着镂空的龙凤花纹。
Píngfēng shàng lòu zhe lòukōng de lóngfèng huāwén.
The screen is carved with openwork dragon-and-phoenix patterns.

Tips

history
镂 is famous from the line 锲而不舍，金石可镂 in the classical text 荀子: keep at it and even metal and stone can be carved. Today most common in 镂空 ('openwork, hollowed-out carving').

Components

radical
钅 jīn
metal
钅 is the metal radical, the left-side form of 金. Engraving is done with a hard metal tool, and the oldest sense of 镂 was a kind of hard steel itself.
phonetic
娄 lóu
phonetic element
娄 supplies the sound, shifted from lóu to lòu. The same phonetic appears in 搂 and 篓, a family of 娄-sound characters.

Stroke Order

镂 lòu