字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

grieve, sad, deplore, regret

On’yomi ヒ
Kun’yomi かな.しい、かな.しむ

Origin

The character combines a heart symbol at the bottom with a sound component on top. The heart element, which appears in many emotion-related kanji, signals that this character describes a feeling rather than an action or object. The top component provides a rough sound hint for how the character was pronounced in Chinese, helping readers recognize it when they encountered it. Together, the heart and the sound component create a character that expresses the emotional experience of sadness and grief.

悲 12 strokes

Components

  • 非 sound hint top
  • 心 radical bottom

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

Common words

  • 慈悲 じひ mercy; compassion
  • 悲哀 ひあい sorrow; grief
  • 悲観 ひかん pessimism; (taking a) gloomy view
  • 悲願 ひがん one's dearest wish
  • 悲劇 ひげき tragedy; tragic drama
  • 悲惨 ひさん disastrous; tragic
  • 悲壮 ひそう tragic but brave; heroic
  • 悲嘆 ひたん grief; sorrow

Related kanji

Same sound component 非
Same radical

Reference

Strokes
12
Kangxi radical
61
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#1014 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+060B2