鬲 (lì) · ancient three-legged cauldron with hollow legs

Meanings

1 ancient three-legged cauldron with hollow legs
2 (also pronounced gé) the indexing form for Kangxi radical #193; archaic loan for diaphragm 膈

Characters

Pictograph of the cauldron viewed from the side: rim and lid on top, swollen body, three hollow legs splayed at the bottom.

Examples

HSK 6

博物馆里展出了一件商代陶鬲。

Bówùguǎn lǐ zhǎnchū le yī jiàn Shāng dài táo lì.

The museum displays a Shang Dynasty pottery li cauldron.

Tips

history

鬲 names a specific Bronze Age vessel - a cauldron whose three legs are hollow, allowing fire to heat liquid more efficiently than the solid-legged 鼎. Pottery 鬲 from the Yangshao culture date to roughly 5000 BCE; bronze examples from Shang and Zhou are key reference pieces in Chinese archaeology.

usage

Read lì for the cauldron and gé for placenames or the borrowed sense "diaphragm / barrier" (where modern Chinese now writes 膈 or 隔). The radical itself groups derivative cauldron-and-cooking words: 融 (melt), 鬻 (to sell / cook porridge), 鬶 (a pitcher form). Learners almost never need to write 鬲 - it lives in archaeology and historical texts.

Components

ideograph

一 yī

one; horizontal stroke (lid)

Top stroke - drawn as a flat lid sealing the vessel below. In 鬲 it pictures the cover or rim-line of an ancient cauldron, the same kind of capping stroke that tops 高 tall and 京 capital. Pure positional indicator: it does not carry a separate semantic role.

semantic

口 kǒu

mouth; opening

Middle 口 - small enclosure picturing the round mouth of the cauldron, the opening through which food and water entered. This is the standard mouth-shape pressed into duty as an 'opening / hollow' indicator, the same way it sits inside 高 and 享.

semantic

冂 jiōng

outer enclosure (vessel walls)

Bottom block - the outer hooked frame 冂 wraps a fused inner shape that pictures the three hollow legs of the cauldron, with the inner strokes resisting clean separation. The whole bottom unit gives the vessel its silhouette: a wide-bellied tripod boiling pot. From this came both the cauldron meaning (lì) and the loan-reading for "diaphragm" (gé).

Radical

Cauldron Kangxi #193

An archaic radical for the hollow-legged cooking cauldron. Productive in classical texts but rare today: 融 (melt - flame rising through the cauldron), 鬻 (sell / cook gruel), 鬶 (gui, pitcher cauldron). Sound varies - the radical itself reads lì, but several derivatives read gé. Mostly a museum word in modern Chinese.