卜

See also: 蔔 and ト

Translingual

Stroke order

Stroke order

Etymology

Perhaps a pictogram of a crack in an oracle bone, used for divination in ancient China. The word itself (Old Chinese: *puk) may be onomatopoeic in origin.

Han character

卜 (radical 25 卜+0, 2 strokes, cangjie input 卜 (Y), four-corner 2300₀)

1. fortune telling
2. prophesy
3. a surname

References

• KangXi: page 157, character 25
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 2774
• Dae Jaweon: page 361, character 15
• Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 1, page 91, character 11
• Unihan data for U+535C

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Cantonese

Hanzi

卜 (traditional 蔔 or 卜, Jyutping buk1, Yale buk1)

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Hakka

Hanzi

卜 (POJ puk, Guangdong puk⁷; p'et⁸ [Dongguan], Hagfa Pinyim bug5)

References

• CCDICT (Chineselanguage.org)
• Academia Sinica - Hakka-English Dictionary
• Lau, Chun-fat. Hakka Pinyin Dictionary (Chinese). Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1997 (Chinese IME supplement) ISBN 962-201-750-9.

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Japanese

Kanji

卜

(“Jinmeiyō” kanji used for names)

Readings

• On: ぼく (boku)
• Kun: うらなう (uranau), うらない (uranai)

Noun

卜 (hiragana うらない, romaji uranai)

1. Alternative form of 占い.

卜 (hiragana ぼく, romaji boku)

1. (archaic) fortune-telling

卜 (hiragana うら, romaji ura)

1. (archaic) fortune-telling

Compounds

Compounds

卜術 (ぼくじゅつ, bokujutsu): scrying 卜占 (ぼくせん, bokusen): augury, divination, scrying, fortune-telling, (particularly using trigrams). 卜占術 (ぼくせんじゅつ, bokusenjutsu): divination techniques

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Korean

Hanja

卜 (hangeul 복 (bok), revised bok, McCune-Reischauer pok, Yale pok)

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Mandarin

Hanzi

卜 (traditional 蔔 or 卜, Pinyin bǔ (bu3), bo (bo5), bó (bo2), Wade-Giles pu³, po⁵, po²)

Noun

卜 (simplified, Pinyin bo or bó, traditional 蔔)

1. (literary) radish

   萝卜 (radish)

Verb

卜 (traditional and simplified, Pinyin bǔ)

1. (literary) to divine

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Middle Chinese

Han character

卜 (*buk)

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Min Nan

Hanzi

卜 (TLPA pok (pok⁴), poh (poh⁴), Poh (Poh⁴), Guangdong bok⁷, bou⁷, Bou⁷)

• Taiwan Min Nan Common Words Dictionary (臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典)

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Vietnamese

Han character

卜

Readings

• âm: bốc, cốc, bặc, bóc, vốc
• nghĩa (literal meaning): ăn bốc

Verb

卜

1. ăn bốc (咹卜, to eat with the fingers)

References

• Nôm Foundation
• Vietnamese Dictionaries: Viet Fun, Viet Dictionary