![Water-dropper, in Japanese known as a 水滴 [suiteki] in Mandarin Chinese known as 水滴 [shuǐdī]. Is a small container used to hold the water which is added to the inkstone during the grinding of the inkstick.](https://media.folkroom.org/entity-images/commons/a36f12098e486f5d3c5f-1280.jpg)
The tradition & historical record
1 min read · 2 sourcesA water-dropper (Japanese: 水滴, Hepburn: suiteki; Chinese: 水滴; pinyin: shuǐdī) is a small device used in East Asian calligraphy as a container designed to hold a small amount of water. In order to make ink a few drops of water are dropped onto the surface of an inkstone. By grinding an inkstick into this water on the inkstone, particles come off and mix with the water, forming ink. Water-droppers may be made of copper, jade or other stone, or ceramic. A water-dropper has two small holes for water and air, and is designed so that only a few drops of water can fall at one time. There are a few types of water-droppers. 1
The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Water-dropper (calligraphy)”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. 1
water-dropper is instrument to drip water onto an inkstone for grinding an ink stick, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. 2
The source record links this tradition to 3 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. 2