薄

• Physical/Quantitative: Thinness, lack of density (e.g., fabric, ice); meager, scanty, or poor (e.g., resources, harvest).
• Abstract/Intellectual: Superficiality; shallow knowledge or understanding.
• Moral/Social: Stinginess; providing meagerly; weakness of loyalty or fickle affection.

• When used in the sense of assaulting or striking, it is often interchangeable with 搏.

The glyph maintains a distinction based on reading:

• bó: Covers physical dimensions, quantitative scarcity, and moral/social weakness.
• bò: Covers spatial proximity (near, adjacent to, or at the edge of) and active conflict (to assault or press against).

In early manuscripts, this glyph may be confused with 溥 (vast/wide) due to phonetic and structural similarities, which can lead to scribal errors or phonetic loans.

If the primary physical sense ("thin") does not fit the immediate context, the translator should test for the spatial sense ("at the edge of") or the active sense ("attack").