Meaning & readings
tassel, tuft, fringe, bunch, lock (hair), segment (orange), house, room
On’yomi ボウ
Kun’yomi ふさ
Nanori お、のぶ、わ
Origin
This character combines 戸, a door or enclosed space, with 方, which sounds like "hou" and serves as a pronunciation guide. The door radical suggests something contained or bundled together, which connects to the meanings of tassel, tuft, or segment — all are things that hang or cluster in a defined bunch. The 方 component doesn't contribute a meaning here, but its sound helped speakers remember how to pronounce the full character. Over time, the image of clustered fibers or segments hanging from or contained within a space became the visual basis for words like "tassel" and "lock of hair."
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 63
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #808 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+0623F