Meaning & readings
join, get together, unite, collective
On’yomi ヘイ
Kun’yomi あわ.せる
Origin
This character combines a person radical on the left with a sound hint on the right. The left side, showing a person, suggests the character relates to human action or gathering. The right component "并" provides a phonetic guide for pronunciation without adding to the meaning. Over time, the idea of a person combined with this sound element came to mean "joining together" or "uniting," since people gathering or combining their efforts is a natural extension of the person radical's basic concept.
Components
- 亻
- 并
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
- 併記 へいき writing side by side; writing (down) together
- 併合 へいごう merger; joining into one
- 併殺 へいさつ double play
- 併設 へいせつ joint establishment (esp. schools of different levels or different courses of study); establishment as an annex (e.g. of a school)
- 併発 へいはつ concurrence; coincidence
- 併用 へいよう combined use; using together (with)
- 合併 がっぺい merger (of companies, towns, etc.); combination
- 合併症 がっぺいしょう complication
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 9
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #966 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+04F75