笳 (jiā): hujia, an ancient reed wind ins…

Meanings

边塞黄昏，胡笳声苍凉地传来。

Biānsài huánghūn, hújiā shēng cāngliáng de chuán lái.

The desolate sound of a reed pipe drifted across the frontier at dusk.

history

笳 rarely stands alone today; it survives in 胡笳 (the nomad reed pipe) and the famous title 胡笳十八拍. It joins the bamboo radical ⺮ with the phonetic 加.

register

Literary; appears in classical frontier poetry and music history rather than as a free word in modern speech.

radical

⺮ zhú

bamboo

The bamboo radical ⺮ on top marks this as a wind instrument; many pipe and flute characters share this cap.

phonetic

加 jiā

to add

Supplies the sound, matching the jiā reading exactly. It is purely phonetic, carrying none of its 'add' meaning.

笳 jiā