卜

See also: 蔔 and ト

Translingual

Stroke order

Han character

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

1. Kangxi radical #25, ⼘.

Derived characters

• Index:Chinese radical/卜

References

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

---

Chinese

Glyph origin

Historical forms of the character 卜
Shang	Western Zhou	Warring States		Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han)	Liushutong (compiled in Ming)
Oracle bone script	Bronze inscriptions	Chu slip and silk script	Qin slip script	Small seal script	Transcribed ancient scripts

Characters in the same phonetic series (卜) (Zhengzhang, 2003) 

	Old Chinese
仆	*pʰoːɡs, *pʰus, *pʰoɡs, *bɯːɡ, *pʰoːɡ
赴	*pʰoɡs
訃	*pʰoɡs
朴	*pʰroːɡ
圤	*pʰroːɡ
卜	*poːɡ
鳪	*poːɡ
扑	*pʰoːɡ
攴	*pʰoːɡ, *pʰroːɡ

Perhaps a pictogram (象形) of a crack in an oracle bone, used for divination in ancient China.

Officially adopted as the simplified form of 蔔 in the Chinese Character Simplification Scheme ((deprecated template usage) 《漢字簡化方案》) in 1956.

Etymology 1

simp. and trad.		卜

May be onomatopoeic in origin. (Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?)

Pronunciation

• Mandarin

  (Pinyin): bǔ (bu³)

  (Zhuyin): ㄅㄨˇ

• Cantonese (Jyutping): buk¹
• Hakka (Sixian, PFS): puk
• Southern Min (Hokkien, POJ): pok / poh

---

• Mandarin
  • (Standard Chinese)⁺
    • Hanyu Pinyin: bǔ
    • Zhuyin: ㄅㄨˇ
    • Tongyong Pinyin: bǔ
    • Wade–Giles: pu³
    • Yale: bǔ
    • Gwoyeu Romatzyh: buu
    • Palladius: бу (bu)
    • Sinological IPA ^(key): /pu²¹⁴/
• Cantonese
  • (Standard Cantonese, Guangzhou–Hong Kong)
    • Jyutping: buk¹
    • Yale: būk
    • Cantonese Pinyin: buk⁷
    • Guangdong Romanization: bug¹
    • Sinological IPA ^(key): /pʊk̚⁵/
• Hakka
  • (Sixian, incl. Miaoli and Meinong)
    • Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: puk
    • Hakka Romanization System: bug`
    • Hagfa Pinyim: bug⁵
    • Sinological IPA: /puk̚²/
• Southern Min
  • (Hokkien: Xiamen, Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, General Taiwanese)
    • Pe̍h-ōe-jī: pok
    • Tâi-lô: pok
    • Phofsit Daibuun: pog
    • IPA (Quanzhou): /pɔk̚⁵/
    • IPA (Xiamen, Zhangzhou, Taipei, Kaohsiung): /pɔk̚³²/
  • (Hokkien: General Taiwanese)
    • Pe̍h-ōe-jī: poh
    • Tâi-lô: poh
    • Phofsit Daibuun: poiq
    • IPA (Taipei): /poʔ³²/
    • IPA (Kaohsiung): /pɤʔ³²/

Note:

• poh - also written as 博;
• pok - surname (Mainland).

---

• Dialectal data

Variety	Location	edit 卜
Mandarin	Beijing	/pu²¹⁴/
	Harbin	/pʰu²¹³/
	Tianjin	/pʰu¹³/
	Jinan	/pu⁵⁵/
	Qingdao	/pu⁵⁵/
	Zhengzhou	/pu⁵³/
	Xi'an	/po²¹/
	Xining	/pv̩⁴⁴/
	Yinchuan	/puə¹³/ 姓 /pu¹³/ ～算子
	Lanzhou	/pə¹³/
	Ürümqi	/pʰu⁵¹/
	Wuhan	/pʰu²¹³/
	Chengdu	/pu¹³/
	Guiyang	/pʰu²¹/
	Kunming	/pʰu³¹/
	Nanjing	/puʔ⁵/
	Hefei	/pʰəʔ⁵/
Jin	Taiyuan	/pəʔ²/
	Pingyao	/pʌʔ¹³/
	Hohhot	/pəʔ⁴³/ ～拉 /pei⁵⁵/ 萝～
Wu	Shanghai	/poʔ⁵/
	Suzhou	/poʔ⁵/
	Hangzhou	/pʰoʔ⁵/
	Wenzhou	/po²¹³/
Hui	Shexian	/pɔʔ²¹/
	Tunxi	/pʰu⁵/
Xiang	Changsha	/pʰu²⁴/
	Xiangtan	/pʰu²⁴/
Gan	Nanchang
Hakka	Meixian	/puk̚¹/
	Taoyuan	/puk̚²²/
Cantonese	Guangzhou	/pok̚⁵/
	Nanning	/pʰuk̚⁵⁵/
	Hong Kong	/puk̚⁵/
Min	Xiamen (Hokkien)	/pɔk̚³²/ /poʔ³²/
	Fuzhou (Eastern Min)	/pɔuʔ²³/
	Jian'ou (Northern Min)	/pʰu²⁴/
	Shantou (Teochew)	/pok̚²/
	Haikou (Hainanese)	/ʔbɔk̚⁵/ /ʔbak̚⁵/

---

• Middle Chinese: puwk

Rime
Character	卜
Reading #	1/1
Initial (聲)	幫 (1)
Final (韻)	屋 (3)
Tone (調)	Checked (Ø)
Openness (開合)	Open
Division (等)	I
Fanqie	博木切
Baxter	puwk
Reconstructions
Zhengzhang Shangfang	/puk̚/
Pan Wuyun	/puk̚/
Shao Rongfen	/puk̚/
Edwin Pulleyblank	/pəwk̚/
Li Rong	/puk̚/
Wang Li	/puk̚/
Bernard Karlgren	/puk̚/
Expected Mandarin Reflex	bu
Expected Cantonese Reflex	buk1

• Old Chinese

  (Baxter–Sagart): /*pˤok/

  (Zhengzhang): /*poːɡ/

Baxter–Sagart system 1.1 (2014)
Character	卜
Reading #	1/1
Modern Beijing (Pinyin)	bǔ
Middle Chinese	‹ puwk ›
Old Chinese	/*pˁok/
English	divine (v.)
Notes for Old Chinese notations in the Baxter–Sagart system: * Parentheses "()" indicate uncertain presence; * Square brackets "[]" indicate uncertain identity, e.g. *[t] as coda may in fact be *-t or *-p; * Angle brackets "<>" indicate infix; * Hyphen "-" indicates morpheme boundary; * Period "." indicates syllable boundary.

Zhengzhang system (2003)
Character	卜
Reading #	1/1
No.	998
Phonetic component	卜
Rime group	屋
Rime subdivision	0
Corresponding MC rime	卜
Old Chinese	/*poːɡ/

Definitions

(deprecated template usage) 卜

1. (literary) to divine
2. a surname

Etymology 2

For pronunciation and definitions of 卜 – see 蔔 (“carrot”). (This character is the simplified form of 蔔).

Notes: Simplified Chinese is mainly used in Mainland China, Malaysia, and Singapore. Traditional Chinese is mainly used in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

Etymology 3

For pronunciation and definitions of 卜 – see 欲 (“wish; desire; to wish; to desire; to want; etc.”). (This character is a variant form of 欲).

References

• “Entry #64”, in 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典 [Dictionary of Frequently-Used Taiwan Minnan] (overall work in Mandarin and Hokkien), Ministry of Education, R.O.C., 2023.

---

Japanese

Kanji

卜

(“Jinmeiyō” kanji used for names)

Readings

• Go-on: ほく (hoku)
• Kan-on: ほく (hoku)
• Kan’yō-on: ぼく (boku)
• Kun: うらなう (uranau), うらない (uranai)

Noun

卜(うらない) • (uranai) 

1. Alternative form of 占い

卜(ぼく) • (boku) 

1. (archaic) fortune-telling

卜(うら) • (ura) 

1. (archaic) fortune-telling

---

Korean

Hanja

卜 (eumhun 점 복 (jeom bok))

1. Hanja form^? of 복 (“to divine”).

---

Vietnamese

Han character

(deprecated template usage) 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

---

Zhuang

Noun

卜

1. Sawndip form of boh

Classifier

卜

1. Sawndip form of boux