煲

煲 (radical 86, 火+9, 13 strokes, cangjie input 人木火 (ODF), four-corner 2680₉, composition ⿱保火)

• KangXi: not present, would follow page 678, character 16
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 19260
• Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 3, page 2218, character 15
• Unihan data for U+7172

The earliest attestation is found in Robert Morrison's A Dictionary of the Chinese Language (Zhang, 2016).

There are various proposals regarding the etymology of the word:

• From Old Chinese:
  • From 釜 (OC *baʔ, “pot; cauldron”) (Chan, 1995; Xu, 2002);
  • From 鍑 (OC *puɡs, *puɡ, “pot; cauldron”) (Zhang Taiyan's Xin Fangyan);
  • From 缶 (OC *puʔ, “earthen jar”) (Pan, 2016);
  • From 缹 (OC *puʔ, “to cook”) (Kong, 1933).
• From a word in the language of the natives in Lingnan, recorded in 《北戶錄》 as 褒 (MC pɑu) (as in 褒牛頭) (Luo, 1960; Huang, 2011).
• From English boil (Zhang, 2016).

煲

1. (chiefly Cantonese) pot; kettle; cauldron (Classifier: 個／个)
2. (chiefly Cantonese) food in a pot

   枝竹羊腩煲 [Cantonese]  ―  zi¹ zuk¹ joeng⁴ naam⁵ bou¹ [Jyutping]  ―  lamb brisket with bean curd in a pot

   魚香茄子煲 / 鱼香茄子煲 [Cantonese]  ―  jyu⁴ hoeng¹ ke^4-2 zi² bou¹ [Jyutping]  ―  fish-fragrant eggplant in a pot

3. (chiefly Cantonese) to boil; to cook

   • 自動提示補水功能可令家用電蒸爐也不會有煲乾水引發火警的危險。 [Literary Cantonese, trad.]
     自动提示补水功能可令家用电蒸炉也不会有煲干水引发火警的危险。 [Literary Cantonese, simp.]

     From: 2015, 紀曉華《水哥廚房：蒸．好生活》

     Zi⁶ dung⁶ tai⁴ si⁶ bou² seoi² gung¹ nang⁴ ho² ling⁶ gaa¹ jung⁶ din⁶ zing¹ lou⁴ jaa⁵ bat¹ wui⁵ jau⁵ bou¹ gon¹ seoi² jan⁵ faat³ fo² ging² dik¹ ngai⁴ him². [Jyutping]

     The ability to automatically remind people to add more water may result in electric household steamers no longer carrying the risk of triggering fire alarms when they become empty.

4. (Cantonese) to smoke (a cigarette)
5. (Cantonese) to do something for a long time