Meaning & readings
pedestal, a stand, counter for machines and vehicles
On’yomi ダイ、タイ
Kun’yomi うてな、われ、つかさ
Origin
This character most likely combines a sound hint on top with a box shape on the bottom. The top component gives a rough pronunciation guide, while the bottom component shaped like a mouth or container suggests something that holds or supports things. Over time, the character came to mean a stand or pedestal—an object that holds something up, like a platform or base for machines. The idea of a "counter" for vehicles developed from this sense of an individual stand or unit.
Components
- 厶
- 口
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 5
- Kangxi radical
- 30
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 2 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #262 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+053F0