How to Write 杵 (chǔ) — Meaning “pestle”

Imagine a wooden stick (木) that you use to pound rice at noon (午) every day. The "noon" hint reminds you that the right side is 午, not another similar shape. This visual of a noon-time pounding action can help fix 杵 in your mind.

Write the left radical 木 first with the standard order: horizontal, vertical, left-falling, right-falling. Then add 午: start with a left-falling stroke, then two horizontals from left to right, and finish with a vertical line that crosses the second horizontal. A common mistake is to confuse 午 with 牛 (cow) — remember 午 has no horizontal at the top.

杵 (pestle) has the component 午 on the right, while 朱 (vermilion) has a dot on top of a horizontal line over 木, and 朴 (simple) has 卜 on the right. Visually, 杵 looks like a wooden tool, 朱 is a color character, and 朴 describes something plain or unadorned. Their meanings are completely different.

杵 appears in words like 杵臼 (mortar and pestle) for traditional medicine or cooking, and in the famous idiom 铁杵磨成针 (iron pestle ground into a needle), which comes from a story about the poet Li Bai learning perseverance. This saying is often used to encourage patience and hard work.

Common words containing 杵 include: 杵子 (chǔ zi) — pestle; 铁杵 (tiě chǔ) — iron pestle; 杵臼 (chǔ jiù) — mortar and pestle.