缶 (fǒu): earthenware jar with a small mo…

Meanings

1 earthenware jar with a small mouth (round-bellied wine or water vessel)
2 (historical) a clay percussion instrument struck to keep time

Characters

缶

fǒu

earthenware jar

Examples

考古队发掘出一只完整的陶缶。

Kǎogǔ duì fājué chū yī zhī wánzhěng de táo fǒu.

The archaeological team unearthed a complete pottery jar.

蔺相如请秦王击缶以助兴。

Lìn Xiāng rú qǐng Qín wáng jī fǒu yǐ zhùxìng.

Lin Xiangru asked the King of Qin to strike the fou to liven up the gathering.

Tips

history

缶 famously appears in the Lin Xiangru / Qin king episode in 《史记·廉颇蔺相如列传》: when the Qin king demanded that Zhao's king play the zither, Lin retaliated by forcing the Qin king to strike a fou — both an instrument and a humiliation, since fou were associated with peasant revelry.

culture

The 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony featured 2008 performers drumming on glowing 缶-style vessels — modern fou modelled on bronze-age examples. As a radical, 缶 marks pottery: 罐 (jar), 缸 (vat), 罐 (canister), 缺 (incomplete, originally a chipped pot).

Components

pictograph

缶 fǒu

earthenware jar; pot

A pictograph of a round-bellied earthenware jar with a small mouth at the top and a wide base below — a clay vessel used in ancient China to hold wine or grain. 缶 is itself a Kangxi radical (#121), indexing pottery characters like 缸 vat and 罐 pot.

Radical

Earthen Jar Kangxi #121

Modest productivity but a clear semantic signal: anything filed under 缶 is a clay or pottery container. Most learner-relevant compounds — 缸 (vat), 罐 (jar), 缺 (lacking, from 'chipped jar') — keep 缶 on one side. The character itself is rare in modern speech outside historical and archaeological contexts.