煮 (zhǔ) is a Chinese character meaning “to boil”. It is written from 者 ("the one who"; a person or thing (as a suffix)) and 灬 (fire dots (bottom form of 火)), one above the other, and takes 12 strokes.
Build the character for “to boil”
Four steps: break it apart, build it, recall it, use it in a word.
StartLearn this character
Structure
者 + 灬
Top–bottom structure
- 者 "the one who"; a person or thing (as a suffix) · zhě sound
- 灬 fire dots (bottom form of 火) · huǒ meaning
Structure from: IDS (cjkvi-ids: ⿱者灬); makemeahanzi dictionary (pictophonetic: 者 phonetic, 灬 semantic)
Memory aid
Someone (者) stands over the fire dots (灬), watching the pot — they are boiling something.
This is a memory aid, not the historical origin.
Stroke order
12 strokes
In real words
- 煮饭zhǔ fànto cook rice; to cook a meal煮 = zhǔ
- 煮熟zhǔ shúto boil until cooked煮 = zhǔ
Go deeper
All readings
to boil
to boil; to cook in water
把食物等放在水里，用火加热使熟。 — studyhanzi 编写
Words with this reading
- 煮饭zhǔ fànto cook rice; to cook a meal煮 = zhǔ
- 煮熟zhǔ shúto boil until cooked煮 = zhǔ
Stroke data: hanzi-writer-data (Arphic Public License) · licenses & attributions
Questions people ask about this character
What does 煮 mean?
煮 (zhǔ) means to boil; to cook in water.
How do you pronounce 煮?
It is pronounced zhǔ.
What parts is 煮 made of?
者 ("the one who"; a person or thing (as a suffix)) and 灬 (fire dots (bottom form of 火)), one above the other. The recorded source is: IDS (cjkvi-ids: ⿱者灬); makemeahanzi dictionary (pictophonetic: 者 phonetic, 灬 semantic). Components are the building blocks of the shape; the radical used for dictionary lookup is a separate thing.
How many strokes does 煮 have?
12. You can watch the stroke order on this page, or trace it yourself.
What is the radical of 煮?
灬. 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 煮?
Common ones are 煮饭 and 煮熟. The reading of 煮 is not the same in every word, so each word on this page shows which reading applies.