窖 (jiào): cellar; underground storage pit

Meanings

1 cellar; underground storage pit
2 to store (food, wine, ice) in a cellar

Characters

窖

jiào

underground storage pit; cellar

Examples

北方人冬天把白菜放在地窖里。

Běifāng rén dōngtiān bǎ báicài fàngzài dìjiào lǐ.

Northerners store cabbage in cellars during winter.

这酒在地窖里窖了二十年。

Zhè jiǔ zài dìjiào lǐ jiào le èrshí nián.

This wine has been cellared underground for twenty years.

Tips

memory

穴 (cave/pit radical) on top + 告 (gào, phonetic) below. The cave-radical signals an underground pit; the reading shifted from gào to jiào. Common compounds: 地窖 dìjiào (cellar), 冰窖 bīngjiào (ice cellar), 红薯窖 hóngshǔjiào (sweet-potato pit).

Components

radical

穴 xué

cave; pit; den

Top cave radical (Kangxi #116) — a dwelling-pit roofed by 宀 with two leg-strokes for the opening, picturing an underground chamber. Indexes 窖 in the dug-hole family: 穿 (pierce), 窝 (nest), 窜 (flee into a hole), 穷 (impoverished). A 窖 is a storage pit dug into the earth, often for pickling vegetables or root crops.

phonetic

告 gào

announce; tell (here phonetic)

Bottom 告 supplies the sound (gào → jiào, regular k/j palatalisation). 告 itself pictures 牛 (ox) over 口 (mouth), originally 'to announce sacrificially'; that meaning has no role here. Pure phonetic. Same phonetic series gives 浩 (vast), 皓 (white-bright), 靠 (lean against), 鹄 (target). Common compounds: 地窖 (cellar), 冰窖 (ice cellar), 窖藏 (cellaring, ageing).