• bean, soybean;

It literally stands for "bean" and is used to refer to beans or legumes in general.

Etymology

The character 豆 is a pictograph originally depicting a lidded vessel with a footed base (a kind of ritual vessel used in ancient ceremonies).

It was initially used to mean "ritual vessel" (祭器). However, through the process of phonetic loaning, its meaning shifted and it came to primarily represent "bean" (콩) in modern usage. This is one of the rare cases where the phonetic loan resulted in a concrete meaning rather than an abstract one.

kong
du
Kangxi radical:151
Strokes:7
Unicode:U+8C46
Cangjie input:
  • 一口廿 (MRT)
Composition:
  • ⿱ 𠮛 䒑
Writing order
豆 Writing order

Neighboring radicals in the dictionary

References