鬻 (yù): to sell (especially under dures…

Meanings

1 to sell (especially under duress)
2 to peddle; to hawk; to traffic in

Characters

鬻

yù

to sell (literary)

Examples

他宁愿挨饿，也不肯鬻字求生。

Tā nìngyuàn áiè, yě bù kěn yù zì qiúshēng.

He would rather starve than sell his calligraphy for hire.

明告鬻梅者。

Mínggào yù méi zhě.

He warned the buyer about the plum tree, said the seller.

Tips

register

yù is strictly classical / literary. The everyday verb for 'to sell' is 卖. 鬻 carries a flavour of selling under reduced or undignified circumstances — selling out, selling cheap, selling something one ought not to. Surviving compounds: 鬻爵 (sell official titles, a chronic late-imperial corruption practice), 卖官鬻爵 (sell offices and rank — a set chengyu-style condemnation of corrupt government), 鬻文 (write for hire), 鬻艺 (sell one's art, often said of itinerant performers).

history

The second example is from Gong Zizhen's 《病梅馆记》 (Sick Plum Garden, 1839): a parable about Qing-dynasty growers who deformed plum trees to suit popular taste — a coded protest against scholar-officials who twisted themselves to please their patrons. The literary 鬻 (sell) underscores the commercial cynicism of the buyers and sellers.

Components

ideograph

鬻 yù

to sell; (originally) to cook gruel

A complex semantic compound: two flanking 弓-like shapes (steam or hands) cradling 米 (rice) above 鬲 (a three-legged cooking tripod, Kangxi #193). The whole picture: rice steaming in a tripod. Originally meant 'to cook gruel' (later that sense was taken over by 粥); the modern sense 'to sell' developed from peddling cooked food and extended to selling in general. Indexed under the 鬲 radical.

Filed under radical 鬲 (lì, #193) by convention. 鬲 is not a separate component in 鬻, so no strokes are highlighted.