棒(ぼう)

棒(ぼう) is any straight, rigid length of material — a stick, pole, rod, or bar. Sense 2 extends this shape to marks on a surface: a straight stroke of the pen, or the bars of a bar chart.

The word is shape-based, not function-based, which is why it appears in so many compounds: whatever the object is for, if it is long and straight it can be a 棒(ぼう).

Common compounds

• 鉄棒(てつぼう): the horizontal bar in gymnastics
• 棒(ぼう)グラフ: bar graph
• 泥棒(どろぼう): thief (historically opaque — the modern word is not felt as containing 'stick')
• 棒読(ぼうよ)み: reading aloud in a flat monotone, as though the pitch were drawn with a ruler

Idioms

• 棒(ぼう)に振(ふ)る: to throw away or waste something you had built up — effort, money, a career.
• 犬(いぬ)も歩(ある)けば棒(ぼう)に当(あ)たる: 'even a dog that walks about will bump into a stick.' A proverb used both ways — act and you may meet misfortune, or act and you may stumble on luck.

Similar words: a 杖(つえ) is a stick used for support when walking; a 竿(さお) is a long slender pole, as for fishing or hanging laundry.