Meaning & readings
abolish, obsolete, cessation, discarding, abandon
Origin
This character combines a shelter-like roof radical on the left, which suggests something covered or enclosed, with the sound hint 発 on the right that helps indicate the pronunciation. The roof component points toward the idea of something being put away, shut up, or stored out of use. When you put something under a roof and leave it there untouched, it becomes obsolete or abandoned. Over time this visual idea of sheltering something out of sight grew to mean discarding, abolishing, or letting something fall into disuse.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- 广
- 発
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
- 荒廃 こうはい ruin; destruction
- 全廃 ぜんぱい total abolition; full phase-out
- 撤廃 てっぱい annulment; abolition
- 廃棄 はいき disposal; abandonment
- 廃墟 はいきょ ruins (of a building, town, etc.); remains
- 廃業 はいぎょう discontinuation (of business); closing down
- 廃坑 はいこう closure of a mine; abandoned mine
- 廃材 はいざい scrap wood; waste wood
Reference
- Strokes
- 12
- Kangxi radical
- 53
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #698 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+05EC3