zhu

See also: zhū, zhú, zhǔ, zhù, and Zhu

English

Etymology 1

The atonal Hanyu Pinyin romanization of Mandarin 銖／铢 (zhū).

Noun

zhu (plural zhu or zhus)

1. (historical) An ancient Chinese unit of weight, notionally equivalent to 100 millet seeds or 1/24 of the liang/tael/Chinese ounce, chiefly used in denominating small coins in ancient and early imperial China.

   Modern research showed the correct number of millet seeds greatly exceeded surviving examples of the zhu in weight, until one tried growing older millet strains for several generations without modern agrochemicals. By the third year, his seeds produced a zhu within about 5% of its known historical value.

Alternative forms

• tcho (obsolete)

Related terms

• sanzhu, wuzhu

Etymology 2

The atonal pinyin romanization of the standard Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 筑 (zhù or zhú).

Noun

zhu (plural zhu or zhus)

1. (music, historical) An ancient Chinese string instrument thought to have had a rectangular zither-like body with silk strings played with a bow.

Coordinate terms

• See Appendix:Glossary of chordophones

Anagrams

• Uzh, uzh

Mandarin

Romanization

zhu

1. Nonstandard spelling of zhū.
2. Nonstandard spelling of zhú.
3. Nonstandard spelling of zhǔ.
4. Nonstandard spelling of zhù.

Usage notes

• Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.

ǃKung

Noun

zhu

1. man