‘葡萄’ (pú táo) is a compound noun meaning ‘grape’, the small, round, juicy fruit that grows in clusters on vines. Neither character alone means ‘grape’: 葡 and 萄 are bound morphemes with no independent meaning in modern Chinese — they only combine to form this word. This is a classic example of a disyllabic word where both syllables are phonetic borrowings from ancient non-Chinese languages (likely via Sanskrit or Persian), not semantic compounds.

The word is used broadly for the fruit itself, its color (‘grape purple’), and related products like 葡萄酒 (pú táo jiǔ, ‘grape wine’). It appears frequently in food contexts, agriculture discussions, and everyday descriptions — for instance, when shopping at a market or describing seasonal produce. Unlike many fruits named with semantic radicals (e.g., 苹果 ‘apple’), 葡萄 relies entirely on sound-based formation, making it memorable but non-intuitive for beginners.