Definition
釜 is a classical Chinese word for a large iron cooking pot or cauldron, used in ancient times for boiling water or cooking stews. Today it appears almost exclusively in chengyu (four-character idioms) and fixed expressions, most famously in 破釜沉舟 ('break the cauldrons and sink the boats' — meaning to burn one's bridges) and 釜底抽薪 ('remove the firewood from under the cauldron' — meaning to take drastic measures to solve a problem). You won't encounter 釜 as a standalone word in modern daily conversation; it's a literary/historical term.
n.
(literary) cauldronlarge iron cooking pot
Examples
- ，。Xiàng Yǔ pò fǔ chén zhōu, biǎoshì bú shènglì jiù bù huíqù.Xiang Yu broke the cauldrons and sank the boats, showing he would not return without victory.
- 釜，。Jiějué wèntí yào fǔ dǐ chōu xīn, bù néng zhǐ zhì biāo.To solve the problem you must remove the firewood from under the cauldron — you can't just treat the symptoms.
- 釜。Zhège chéngyǔ lǐ yòng de fǔ shì gǔdài zhǔ fàn yòng de guō.The cauldron used in this idiom is a pot for cooking rice in ancient times.
Browse more HSK 7-9 words or search the full 43,000-word dictionary.