also: ラオ
noun
bamboo stem of a Japanese pipe
Refers specifically to the bamboo tube that forms the stem of a traditional Japanese smoking pipe (kiseru).
煙管の羅宇が折れてしまった。
The bamboo stem of the kiseru broke.
この羅宇は煤竹でできている。
This bamboo stem is made of smoked bamboo.
Alternate reading; less common than ラウ.
Katakana spelling is common in practice, especially in contexts where the kanji is obscure.
煙管 is the whole traditional Japanese pipe, while 羅宇 refers specifically to its bamboo stem.
The kanji 羅宇 are ateji (phonetic equivalents) for the reading ラウ, which may derive from a Chinese or Southeast Asian word for a type of bamboo or tube. The exact origin is uncertain.