Meaning & readings

crash, fall (down)

On’yomi ツイ
Kun’yomi お.ちる、お.つ

Origin

The character 墜 combines soil or earth (土) at the bottom with 隊 at the top, which acts as a sound hint for the pronunciation. The soil component makes sense because falling typically involves something dropping to the ground or earth. The 隊 component doesn't contribute meaning but signals roughly how the character should be pronounced. Together, these parts create a character that visually suggests heaviness and downward movement toward the earth.

墜 15 strokes

Components

  • 隊 sound hint top
  • 土 radical bottom

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

Common words

  • 撃墜 げきつい shooting down (an aircraft)
  • 失墜 しっつい abasement; fall
  • 墜落 ついらく fall; crash (of an aircraft)

Reference

Strokes
15
Kangxi radical
32
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1466 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+0589C