字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

bury, be filled up, embedded

On’yomi マイ
Kun’yomi う.める、う.まる、う.もれる、うず.める、うず.まる、い.ける

Origin

This character combines earth or soil (土) on the left with a sound hint (里) on the right. The 里 component tells you roughly how to pronounce the character — it gives you the "mai" sound. The key to the meaning comes from the left side: earth or soil naturally suggests the idea of burying something in the ground or filling something up with earth. By pairing the earth radical with a pronunciation guide, the character visually represents the act of covering or embedding something in soil.

埋 10 strokes

Components

  • 土 radical left
  • 里 sound hint right

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 埋葬 まいそう burial
  • 埋蔵 まいぞう burying in the ground
  • 埋没 まいぼつ being buried
  • 穴埋め あなうめ filling (up) a hole
  • 埋める うずめる to cover; to bury (e.g. one's face in hands)
  • 埋まる うまる to be buried; to be covered
  • 埋もれる うもれる to be buried; to be covered
  • 埋め立て うめたて land reclamation; land fill

Related kanji

Same sound component 里
Same radical

Reference

Strokes
10
Kangxi radical
32
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1110 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+057CB