Learn one Chinese Character a day - 殳

To learn a new Chinese character 盘 | 盤, we need to prepare ourselves with some other Chinese characters, otherwise you might wonder how come a type of kitchenware can be related to a boat?

Today's character 殳 is one of that. What does 殳 mean then? We can only know that lower part of 殳, which is 又, refers to hand. What is its upper part here? You might have said that was 几, which means a small table. Let us check its evolution history to double check: (image taken from http://chinese-linguipedia.org/)

Learn one Chinese Character a day - 殳

Now we can tell clearly that 殳 is to mean holding a long rod with one big end.

In ancient China, soldiers normally used a long rod with one end tied up with sharp stones or metals, as shown below. Thus 殳 is borrowed to mean such weapon.

殳

Its original meaning, however, is preserved while 殳 is used as a Radical. For example the Chinese character 般 we are going to learn next.

Before that let us enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 殳 inside:

殳篆