髓 (suǐ): marrow (bone)

Meanings

1 marrow (bone)
2 pith (botany)
3 innermost essence (figurative)

Characters

髓

suǐ

marrow; pith; innermost core

Examples

HSK 6

他深得这门艺术的精髓。

Tā shēn dé zhè mén yìshù de jīngsuǐ.

He has deeply grasped the essence of this art form.

HSK 7-9

骨髓移植可以治疗某些血液病。

Gǔsuǐ yízhí kěyǐ zhìliáo mǒuxiē xuèyè bìng.

Bone marrow transplants can treat certain blood diseases.

Tips

usage

髓 rarely appears alone; it is mostly a bound morpheme in compounds: 骨髓 (bone marrow), 精髓 (quintessence; essence), 脑髓 (brain matter). 精髓 is especially common as a formal expression for 'the core essence' of something.

Components

radical

骨 gǔ

bone

Left-side bone radical - a pictograph of a joint socket with flesh below, depicting the architecture of bone meeting tissue. Indexes 髓 in the skeletal family alongside 骼 skeleton, 髋 hip, 髁 condyle. Carries the meaning directly: 髓 is what lives inside bone - marrow, the soft generative core hidden in the hard shell.

phonetic

⺼ ròu

flesh

Right side is a fused phonetic unit: the visible bottom ⺼ flesh-strokes sit beneath earlier graphic strokes that historically formed 隋 minus 阝 - the suí phonetic. Standalone ⺼ has 4 strokes; here 12 because the sound-carrying strokes collapsed onto the flesh piece. Supplies suī shifted to suǐ.