Chinese Character Wiki
塗

tú

smear, spread, paint

Phonosemantic compound. 土 represents the meaning and 涂 represents the sound.

Components
涂 sound component

涂  Sound component

tú

  

smear, spread, paint

土 meaning component

土  Meaning component

tǔ

  

earth

Evolution

塗 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
塗 Clerical script Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)

Clerical script

Western Han dynasty (202 BC-9 AD)
塗 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
塗 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
塗 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

涂 (塗) 

tú

smear, daub, apply, spread; paint; to apply (paint etc); to smear; to daub; to blot out; to scribble; to scrawl; (literary) mud; street

Most common words with 塗
Freq.
Word
Meaning

涂

to smear

糊涂

muddled

一塌糊涂

complete shambles

涂料

paint

涂鸦

graffiti

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*lˤa

du

tú

to plaster

*lˤa

du

tú

road


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 21.6883% of movies

1505th most common character in movies

1735th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

13

Simplified

涂

Unicode

U+5857

Shuowen

《說文新附》：“塗，泥也。从土，涂聲。”


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