匾 (biǎn): horizontal inscribed plaque (hu…

Measure Word

一块匾 kuài

Meanings

1 horizontal inscribed plaque (hung above a door or on a wall)
2 shallow round bamboo basket

Characters

匾

biǎn

horizontal plaque

Examples

HSK 2

匾上刻着三个大字。

Biǎn shàng kè zhe sān gè dàzì.

On the plaque are inscribed three big characters.

HSK 6

这块匾是从清朝流传下来的，已经有百年历史。

Zhè kuài biǎn shì cóng Qīngcháo liúchuán xiàlai de, yǐjīng yǒu bǎinián lìshǐ.

This plaque has been passed down since the Qing dynasty - it's a hundred years old.

HSK 7-9

商店大门上悬挂着一块金色的匾。

Shāngdiàn dàmén shàng xuánguà zhe yí kuài jīnsè de biǎn.

A gilded plaque hung above the shop's main door.

Tips

culture

A 匾 (or fuller 匾额) is the wide horizontal wooden board you see over the entrance of temples, restaurants, ancestral halls and old shops. The text is usually gilded or carved, and a calligraphy plaque from a famous figure is a serious status object - many shops claim emperor-written ones. Vertical signs, by contrast, are 对联, not plaques.

memory

Hidden inside (匸, concealment) is 扁 'flat' - and that flat board IS the plaque. 扁 also gives the sound (no change), so this is a near-perfect phono-semantic: a flat thing, read biǎn.

Components

radical

匸 xì

conceal; cover from the side

Kangxi #23, visually almost identical to 匚 (#22) but indexed separately - the 'concealment' bracket. Wrap-then-close: top-and-left arm first, inner 扁 written next, bottom stroke seals it. Here it brackets and frames the flat plaque rather than 'hiding' it - semantic flavor stretched.

phonetic

扁 biǎn

flat; thin and wide

Does double duty: phonetic (biǎn → biǎn, identical) and semantic - 扁 'flat' captures the plaque's defining shape, since a 匾 is a flat horizontal board. Inside 扁 itself you can see 户 'door' over 册 'writing tablets' - fitting, since plaques originally meant words inscribed above a door.