拾
to ascend in light steps; to pick up; to collate or arrange; ten (banker's anti-fraud numeral)
Closest English meanings
pick up·collect·ten·gather
The Calligrapher — Zhāng Xiàoxiáng 张孝祥
Song lyricist and calligrapher famed for his robust running script.
Song calligrapher (), master of running script — known for 《柴沟帖》. Song dynasty
Cultural Story
The formal numeral for ten, 拾, appears on checks and contracts beside 柒 and 捌 to stop a forger's pen. And Du Fu once held the post of 左拾遺, the left rectifier who 拾 up what the emperor let fall. The character is both bookkeeping and conscience, the same hand that balances a ledger also catching the ruler's dropped duties.
Common words & phrases
- 拾取 pick up · collect
- 收拾 tidy up · put in order
- 拾荒 scavenge · collect scraps
- 拾遗 pick up lost items · make good omissions
Read the story behind the character
You 收拾 the room; a 拾荒者 gathers cans from the gutter; a reader 拾取 a dropped thread of the plot. The rectifier is a civil servant now, but the basic motion — bend, take up what was dropped — still belongs to the poor and the tidy alike, and the emperor's lost virtue is now a dropped sweet wrapper.
Own this character
Purchase delivers the original SVG of this glyph, brushed by Zhāng Xiàoxiáng 张孝祥, ready to place on skin, paper, or screen.