About
The character 筘 is a phono-semantic compound denoting the reed of a weaving loom, a comb-like tool that separates warp threads and beats the weft into place. Its bamboo radical 竹 at the top indicates the material historically used to craft the tool, while the phonetic component 扣 (kòu) at the bottom provides the pronunciation and a related sense of fastening or striking. This structure reflects traditional textile techniques, where bamboo strips were tightly bound to form the loom reed. In modern Chinese, the character appears almost exclusively in textile industry vocabulary, referring both to the physical tool and to the measure of warp thread density in a woven fabric.