龠 (yuè): ancient three-holed bamboo flut…

Meanings

1 ancient three-holed bamboo flute (precursor of the panpipe)
2 ancient unit of dry capacity (the smallest of 龠/合/升/斗/斛); roughly 10 ml

Characters

ancient bamboo flute; small grain measure

Ideogram: 亼 (assembled) over 品 (rows of mouth-holes) over 冊 (bound bamboo strips) — pipes lashed together with their holes facing up.

Examples

古乐器中的龠是排箫的前身。

Gǔ yuèqì zhōng de yuè shì páixiāo de qiánshēn.

Among ancient instruments, the yue is a precursor of the panpipe.

Tips

history

龠 is the original (本字) of 籥 — a short bamboo wind instrument with three holes, played in early Zhou ceremonial music. Han-dynasty mathematicians later borrowed the name as the smallest unit of grain measure: 2 龠 = 1 合, 10 合 = 1 升 (about half a liter). The unit was set against the volume of 1,200 millet seeds inside a calibration tube.

usage

Almost never used in modern Chinese. You meet 龠 in archaeology, classical music studies, or as Kangxi radical #214 — the final, highest-numbered radical. Its compounds are all archaic: 龢 (harmony, displaced by 和), 龣 (a musical note).

Components

pictograph

龠 yuè

ancient bamboo flute

Single self-component — 龠 is its own Kangxi radical (#214, the very last), treated as an atomic graph. Oracle-bone form pictured three or more bamboo tubes bound at the top with a cover-piece, an ancient pan-pipe ancestor. The middle shows tied tubes; the top is the binding. Use is historical.

Radical

Flute Kangxi #214

The final Kangxi radical, capping the canonical list at #214. Indexes a tiny set of archaic music characters: 龢 (harmony — the original form of 和), 龤 (concord), 龣 (a musical pitch). The graph stacks a roof, three mouth-holes, and bound bamboo strips, depicting pipes lashed together — the prototype of the panpipe.