箔 (bó): foil (thin metal sheet)

Meanings

1 foil (thin metal sheet)
2 metal leaf (gold leaf, silver leaf)
3 plaited matting (of bamboo or rushes)
4 silkworm rearing tray (made of woven bamboo)

Characters

箔

bó

foil, leaf, woven matting

Examples

HSK 6

佛像贴满了金箔。

Fóxiàng tiē mǎn le jīnbó.

The Buddha statue is covered with gold leaf.

HSK 7-9

请用锡箔纸包好食物。

Qǐng yòng xībó zhǐ bāo hǎo shíwù.

Please wrap the food in tin foil.

HSK 7-9

蚕农把蚕放在箔上养。

Cánnóng bǎ cán fàngzài bó shàng yǎng.

The silkworm farmer raises the silkworms on bamboo trays.

Tips

usage

Modern usage is dominated by metal-foil compounds: 金箔 ('gold leaf'), 锡箔 ('tinfoil'), 铝箔 ('aluminum foil' - the kitchen kind), 锡箔纸 (tinfoil paper). The original sense - woven bamboo matting used as silkworm-rearing trays - survives mostly in agricultural / classical contexts.

memory

The 竹 (bamboo) radical on top is your clue to the original meaning: a bamboo mat. From there, the meaning generalized to 'thin sheet', and modern Mandarin reattached it to thin metal sheets - gold leaf, silver leaf, foil.

Components

radical

⺮ zhú

bamboo (top radical form of 竹)

Top bamboo radical - compressed canopy form of 竹, two paired leaf clusters. As the indexing radical it carries the meaning: a 箔 is a woven bamboo mat, a silkworm tray, or a thin metal sheet flat as a splint. Same family: 篱 fence, 笼 cage, 筐 basket, 筛 sieve.

phonetic

泊 bó

to moor; lake

Bottom 泊 supplies the full sound - bó read identically in the parent. Borrowed purely for pronunciation. Same phonetic-family appears in 舶 ocean ship, 帛 silk, 拍 to slap, all with related readings derived from the 白 phonetic core.