陌 (mò): path between fields

Meanings

1 path between fields
2 country lane
3 thoroughfare (classical)

Characters

陌

mò

path between fields; thoroughfare (classical)

Examples

HSK 5

陌生人突然出现在熟悉的小陌上。

Mòshēngrén tūrán chūxiàn zài shúxī de xiǎo mò shàng.

A stranger suddenly appeared on the familiar country lane.

HSK 7-9

他沿着田间小陌缓缓而行。

Tā yánzhe tiánjiān xiǎo mò huǎnhuǎn ér xíng.

He walked slowly along the narrow path between the fields.

Tips

history

陌 (mò) originally referred to an east-west path between cultivated fields, while 阡 (qiān) referred to a north-south path. The compound 阡陌 (qiānmò) means 'the paths between fields' and is a classical literary image of a pastoral landscape. 陌 now appears mainly in 陌生 (mòshēng, 'unfamiliar; strange') and literary usage.

Components

radical

阝 fù

mound; hill (left-side form of 阜)

Mound radical on the left - the side-form of 阜, the indexing radical. It pictures a stepped earthen rise and marks 陌 as something belonging to terrain. Country lanes run between low banks of raised earth dividing the fields, exactly the landscape this radical evokes. Same family: 陡 (steep), 阶 (steps), 阴 (shady side), 陆 (land).

phonetic

百 bǎi

hundred (here phonetic)

Right side 百 supplies the sound (bǎi shifted toward mò by an old labial drift). It carries no semantic weight in modern usage, though classical commentators sometimes glossed it as 'paths counted by the hundreds,' a folk etymology rather than the real source. Same phonetic seeds 柏 (cypress) and 拍 (clap).