Meaning & readings
crumble, die, demolish, level
On’yomi ホウ
Kun’yomi くず.れる、-くず.れ、くず.す
Origin
The character combines the mountain radical (山) at the top with the sound component 朋 at the bottom. The mountain part shows the meaning — mountains are sturdy and permanent, but when a mountain crumbles or collapses, it represents the failure of something solid. The 朋 component functions as a sound hint, suggesting the Chinese-derived pronunciation, rather than adding to the meaning itself. Together, these parts create a character that visually suggests the catastrophic breakdown of something as imposing as a mountain.
Components
- 山
- 朋
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 11
- Kangxi radical
- 46
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #778 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+05D29