笠 (lì): bamboo rain hat

Measure Word

一顶笠 dǐng

Meanings

1 bamboo rain hat
2 conical hat

Characters

笠

lì

bamboo rain hat

Examples

渔翁戴着斗笠在河边钓鱼。

Yúwēng dài zhe dǒulì zài hébiān diàoyú.

The old fisherman wore a bamboo hat while fishing by the river.

Tips

usage

笠 is rarely used alone in modern Chinese. It almost always appears in the compound 斗笠, meaning a wide-brimmed conical rain hat woven from bamboo.

Components

radical

⺮ zhú

bamboo (top radical form of 竹)

Top bamboo radical - the compressed cap form of 竹, two stylized bamboo leaves pointing down. The indexing radical, files 笠 in the bamboo-product family: 笔 brush, 笑 laugh (bamboo bowing in the wind), 第 ordinal, 答 answer, 篱 fence, 筷 chopsticks. Marks 笠 as a bamboo-craft object - specifically a wide woven rain-hat (斗笠 the iconic conical farmer's hat).

phonetic

立 lì

to stand

Bottom 立 supplies the sound - lì exactly, no shift. Also adds a faint semantic flavor: a hat that 'stands' up off the head, a vertical structure rising above the wearer. Same phonetic family: 粒 grain, 拉 pull, 泣 weep. The bamboo cap + standing post mnemonic fits the silhouette of a coolie hat resting atop a human figure.