卜 (bǔ) is a Chinese character meaning “to divine”. It is written from 丨 (vertical stroke) and 丶 (dot stroke), and takes 2 strokes. It has a second reading, bo, which turns up in 萝卜 — here the two readings are two separate things to learn, not one card with two answers.
Build the character for “to divine”
Four steps: break it apart, build it, recall it, use it in a word.
StartLearn this character
Structure
丨 + 丶
Overlapping structure
Structure from: Unicode U+535C and hanzi-writer-data 2.0.1 modern glyph inspection; IDS cross-checked against stroke paths
Memory aid
A dot (丶) branches from a vertical stroke (丨): remember this two-stroke shape for divination.
This is a memory aid, not the historical origin.
Stroke order
2 strokes
In real words
- 占卜zhān bǔto practice divination; divination卜 = bǔ
Go deeper
All readings
to divine
to divine; to foretell by divination
占卜；用传统方法推测吉凶。 — studyhanzi 编写
Words with this reading
- 占卜zhān bǔto practice divination; divination卜 = bǔ
radish (in 萝卜)
a neutral-tone syllable used in the word 萝卜 (radish)
在「萝卜」一词中读轻声。 — studyhanzi 编写
Words with this reading
- 萝卜luó boradish卜 = bo
Stroke data: hanzi-writer-data (Arphic Public License) · licenses & attributions
Questions people ask about this character
What does 卜 mean?
卜 (bǔ) means to divine; to foretell by divination.
How do you pronounce 卜?
Its main reading is bǔ. It also has a second reading, bo, which only shows up in certain words such as 萝卜 — so the word tells you the reading, not the character on its own.
Why is 卜 sometimes pronounced bo?
Because it is a multi-reading character: each reading carries a different sense, and the word decides which one applies. In 萝卜 it is read bo.
What parts is 卜 made of?
丨 (vertical stroke) and 丶 (dot stroke). The recorded source is: Unicode U+535C and hanzi-writer-data 2.0.1 modern glyph inspection; IDS cross-checked against stroke paths. Components are the building blocks of the shape; the radical used for dictionary lookup is a separate thing.
How many strokes does 卜 have?
2. You can watch the stroke order on this page, or trace it yourself.
What is the radical of 卜?
卜. The radical is how the character is filed in a dictionary — it is not the whole story of how the character is built.
What words use 卜?
Common ones are 占卜. The reading of 卜 is not the same in every word, so each word on this page shows which reading applies.