Meaning & readings
rue, be sad, sigh, lament
On’yomi ガイ
Kun’yomi なげ.く
Origin
This character combines the heart radical on the left, which shows it relates to emotions or inner feelings, with the character 既 on the right that serves as a sound hint for pronunciation. The heart element signals that this is about emotional states, while 既 tells you roughly how to say the character. Together they create a word for the kind of heartfelt sorrow and lamentation you feel when regretting something or sighing deeply about life's disappointments.
Components
- 忄
- 既
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 13
- Kangxi radical
- 61
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1875 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+06168