Pot-Jar Character 壺

It means a pot, jar, or flask; context supplies the exact sense. Its earliest surviving forms appear in oracle-bone and bronze scripts, early Chinese writing, drawn as a lidded, handled vessel. The hu vessel type was already known in the mid-Shang and stayed in fashion through the Han; a late Western Zhou wine vessel for important occasions carries a court-investiture inscription.

Later Chinese use covers water, tea, wine, storage jars, and a measure; 壺中天地 turns “jar” into an otherworldly place. Japanese tsubo adds a dice cup, hollow, target point, pressure point, and musical fingering point. Simplified 壶 and Japanese variant 壷 are the same word in different printed shapes.