CJK Unified Ideograph-623D

It means to draw or bale water, especially for irrigation.

The Ministry of Education's 2024 character record notes that 戽 is not recorded in Shuowen; later sources gloss it as a water-drawing vessel or the act of drawing water. A Tang-era poem uses 戽 for taking fish from a pond, and Yuan-era agricultural writing describes 戽斗 as a scoop pulled by two people across a low bank.

Its job was simple muscle work: lift water from a lower bank into fields when a waterwheel could not be set up. Forms included bamboo, rattan, wood, and handled scoops. By the late 20th century, pumps and waterwheels had pushed hand-baling out of ordinary irrigation.

Why can 戽斗 describe a face?

In Taiwanese Taigi, it can mean a long, protruding chin.

That sense lives in the dialectal compound 戽斗, beside the agricultural scoop sense. It is a body description, so aiming it at someone can embarrass; if the message is about a person, take the social risk seriously before reading it as farming talk.

The verb changes the scene: 戽水 is to draw, splash, or irrigate with water; 戽魚 names catching fish by draining. A Taiwan museum interview dated 2024-02-02 records farmers taking turns at the scoop and using it for fishing in the off-season.

Treat 戽 as text, not a reaction

As of 2026, 戽 has no standard pictographic or emoji-reaction reading. Read the surrounding phrase: farming points to water handling, a face description points to the chin sense. Sent alone, ask which phrase the sender meant.

If it shows as a square, the problem is font coverage. Unsupported characters can fall back to a missing-glyph box or code-point marker; switch to a font that covers Chinese and the character returns.