瘿
goiter; knob on tree
Closest English meanings
goiter·tumor·gall
The Calligrapher — Sū Shì 苏轼
Song literatus whose spontaneous running script shaped the literati ideal.
Song calligrapher (1037–1101), master of running script/regular script — Song poet-statesman and polymath whose expressive running script made personality, not rules, the point. Song dynasty
Cultural Story
Zhuangzi populated the Dao with the deformed: a sage bearing a 瘿 big as an earthenware jar, monstrous to the eye and spiritually vast. Later herbalists prized 木瘿 — tree burls — for grain like frozen water, carving them into brush rests and scholar's objects of quiet vanity.
Common words & phrases
- 瘿瘤 goiter · tumor
- 瘿袋 goiter (swelling)
- 木瘿 burr (tree gall)
Read the story behind the character
Medicine turned goiter into a thyroid scan, not an omen: clinics discuss 瘿瘤 (goiter, tumor) calmly over ultrasound images. Woodworkers, meanwhile, hunt 木瘿 (burls) for phone cases and tea trays, and collectors still pay remarkable prices for a 瘿袋 (burl growth) with perfect grain.
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