箸 (zhù): (literary) chopsticks

箸 (zhù) is a Chinese character meaning “(literary) chopsticks.” Outside the HSK 3.0 syllabus (CLEC 2022), it is composed of ⺮ (semantic) and 者 (phonetic). It ranks #9999 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 箸 bamboo. Its radical form 竹 (bamboo) appears in many related characters such as 第 (dì, (prefix indicating ordinal number, as in 第六 "sixth")), 等 (děng, to wait for), 笑 (xiào, to laugh).

Spoken pronunciation
Radical: 竹 bamboo14 strokesFrequency #9999⺮ semantic者 phonetic

Definitions

  1. (literary) chopsticks

Etymology & Origin

箸

pictophoneticbamboo

Decomposition: ⿱⺮者 (layout: top-bottom)

Components:⺮semantic者phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

Practice writing 箸 with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
下箸xià zhù(literary) to eat
借箸jiè zhùlit. to borrow chopsticks
2
Total compounds
0
As first character
100
As last character
0
As middle character

箸 appears in 2 compound words: 0 as the first character, 100 as the last, and 0 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the ⺮ (bamboo) component

管guǎn简jiǎn策cè签qiān符fú箱xiāng箭jiàn筹chóu籍jí笼lóng

Related Characters

第dì等děng笑xiào简jiǎn管guǎn策cè签qiān筑zhù竿gān篷péng

Homophones — Characters pronounced zhù

著zhù

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 箸 (zhù) mean in Chinese?
箸 (zhù) primarily means "(literary) chopsticks." It is not part of the HSK 3.0 syllabus. It ranks #9999 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 箸 and 都?
箸 (zhù) and 都 (dōu) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 竹 vs 阝 (same 者 component).
How many strokes does 箸 have?
箸 is written with 14 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 箸?
The radical associated with 箸 is 竹 (bamboo). This radical appears in many characters related to bamboo.
What are the components of 箸?
箸 is composed of: ⺮ (semantic), 者 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿱⺮者 with a top-bottom layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 箸?
Common words with 箸 include: 下箸 (xià zhù, "(literary) to eat"); 借箸 (jiè zhù, "lit. to borrow chopsticks"). There are over 2 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 箸 (zhù)?
Several characters share the pronunciation zhù: 著 (famous, to write). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 箸 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
No. The simplified form is 箸 and the traditional form is 筯.

Practice writing 箸 with real-time feedback

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Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.