读 (dòu): pause; phrase-break in classica…

Meanings

1 pause; phrase-break in classical text
2 comma-like pause (in unpunctuated classical writing)

Characters

读

dòu

pause; phrase-break in classical text

Examples

掌握句读是读古文的基础。

Zhǎngwò jùdòu shì dú gǔwén de jīchǔ.

Mastering classical phrasing is the foundation of reading old texts.

没有句读，文意难明。

Méiyǒu jùdòu, wényì nán míng.

Without commas and pauses, the meaning of a classical text is hard to discern.

Tips

register

The dòu reading is a literary specialist term, surviving almost exclusively in 句读 — the traditional name for phrase breaks in unpunctuated classical texts. In old commentaries, 句 marked a full stop and 读 marked a comma-like pause. Modern speech and writing use the everyday dú reading everywhere else; you will only meet dòu in classical-studies contexts.

Components

radical

讠 yán

speech (radical form)

Left speech radical, the side-form of 言. Marks 读 as a verbal-act character: reading aloud, reciting, declaiming. The simplified speech radical compresses 言 into two strokes — a horizontal mark above an angled mouth-line. Same radical anchors 说, 语, 讲, and 课.

phonetic

卖 mài

to sell (graphic only)

Right-side 卖 supplies the sound: simplified from the traditional 讀, where the phonetic was an old hand-over graph reading yù. The shift from yù to dú is a large velar-to-dental drift, and the modern 'sell' meaning plays no role here — this is a graphic phonetic carrier only. The same phonetic anchors 续 (continue) and 犊 (calf).