籥 (yuè): (classical) an ancient bamboo f…

Meanings

1 (classical) an ancient bamboo flute
2 (classical) a key for a lock

Characters

籥

yuè

ancient bamboo flute

Examples

古书里籥是一种古代竹笛。

Gǔshū lǐ yuè shì yīzhǒng gǔdài zhúdí.

In old texts this character is a kind of ancient bamboo flute.

Tips

history

籥 is not used in modern Chinese; in classical texts it names an ancient multi-pipe bamboo flute and, by extension, a lock key (also read kuì for an earthen basket in some old sources). It adds the bamboo radical ⺮ on top of 龠, itself the pictograph of a panpipe, to stress the bamboo material.

register

Classical only; the modern word for flute is 笛 and for key 钥匙.

Components

radical

⺮ zhú

bamboo

⺮ is the bamboo radical, the top-position form of 竹. It was added to mark the flute's material explicitly, since 龠 already pictured a pipe instrument.

phonetic

龠 yuè

ancient panpipe (phonetic and meaning)

龠 is a pictograph of a bundled set of pipes with a mouthpiece. It gives both the sound yuè and the core meaning — 籥 is essentially 龠 with a bamboo cap added.

No stroke data for 籥; the glyph shown is your device font, so component strokes can't be highlighted.