One character a day, easy to master Chinese characters. Let's take a look at the basic knowledge of "束".

“Shu” is an associative character, with the square structure in its oracle bone inscription version resembling strings, and the three strokes in the middle representing firewood. The character thus gives the message of tying up pieces of firewood, hence its original meaning – to bind or tie. The square is changed to a circle in the small seal script, and back to a square in the regular script, with the “mu” (“木”, meaning “wood”) radical replacing the three pieces of firewood.

From the original meaning, a host of other meanings are derived, including “control”, “restrain”, “manage”, and “the result of an event”. In Chinese, “shu” is also a measure word. When combined with a numeral, it indicates the number of things tied up.

Sentences