About
The character "栌", whose traditional form is "櫨", is composed of the wood radical (木) and the phonetic component "盧" (lú). Its primary original meaning referred to the Chinese varnish tree (Toxicodendron vernicifluum), a source of lacquer. Over time, the semantic application of the character shifted away from the tree itself and became specialized in an architectural context, where it denotes the large block or cap placed atop a column, specifically the dou in the dougong bracket system, a critical structural element in traditional East Asian building design.
Etymology Hide
