砧 (zhēn): anvil

Measure Word

一块砧 kuài

Meanings

1 anvil
2 chopping block
3 stone for beating laundry

Characters

砧

zhēn

anvil, pounding block

Examples

铁匠在砧上敲打着烧红的铁。

Tiějiang zài zhēn shàng qiāodǎ zhe shāo hóng de tiě.

The blacksmith hammered the red-hot iron on the anvil.

深秋夜里，远处传来阵阵砧声。

Shēn qiū yèlǐ, yuǎnchù chuánlái zhènzhèn zhēn shēng.

On a late-autumn night, the sound of laundry-pounding drifted from afar.

Tips

culture

In classical Chinese poetry, 砧声 (zhēnshēng, the rhythmic sound of women beating laundry on a stone block) is a stock autumn image evoking longing - wives pounding cloth to make winter clothes for soldier husbands far away. See Li Bai's 子夜吴歌 (Wu Songs of Midnight): 长安一片月，万户捣衣声.

memory

石 (stone) radical + 占 (zhān, occupy/divine) phonetic - but read zhēn here. Picture a stone block taking up space in the workshop or laundry yard.

Components

radical

石 shí

stone

Left stone radical - a pictograph of a rock dropping from a cliff (top-left slope) with the boulder below. The indexing radical, anchors 砧 in the stone-tool family: 砖 brick, 矿 ore, 砸 to smash, 碎 broken, 磨 grind. Marks 砧 as a stone object - a flat block used as an anvil or chopping board, the rock you strike or cut against.

phonetic

占 zhàn

occupy; divine

Right 占 supplies the sound - zhàn shifting to zhēn with both tone and vowel change. Pure phonetic role; the 'occupy / divine by cracks' meaning of 占 contributes nothing semantically. Same phonetic family: 站 to stand / station, 战 war, 粘 sticky, 沾 to wet. The anvil sense of 砧 is preserved in compounds like 砧板 chopping block.