龠 Radical 214 — an ancient multi-piped wind instrument; a unit of dry or liquid measure
an ancient multi-piped wind instrument; a unit of dry or liquid measure
Where the shape comes from
A bundle of pipes bound together with a mouthpiece above, the sign for multiple openings stacked over a mark meaning gathered, joined — an ancient panpipe or reed organ, played by breath across several tuned tubes at once rather than a single hole as in a simple flute. Its precise, tuned bore made it useful for more than music: Han-dynasty metrology fixed the pitch-pipe’s own volume as the base unit of dry and liquid measure, a 龠 defined as the space taken up by exactly twelve hundred grains of millet, so that music, mathematics and the imperial standard for grain and wine all rested on the same small bamboo tube. The character now survives mostly as a classifier heading a handful of rare or ceremonial words, among them 籥, its own later variant naming the instrument directly, and 龢, an old form of 和, harmony, tuned instruments sounding together standing for the broader concord it still means today.
characters filed under 龠
No published character on HSK Guide is filed under this radical yet. Character explorer.