Meaning & readings

bungling, clumsy, unskillful

On’yomi セツ
Kun’yomi つたな.い

Origin

This character combines a hand on the left (扌), which classifies it as an action word, with the component 出 on the right, which hints at its pronunciation. The hand suggests the meaning is about something you do with your hands — in this case, clumsily or without skill. Over time, the character came to express the broader idea of being bungling or unskillful at any task, not just manual ones. The 出 component doesn't tell you what the character means; it's there mainly to suggest how the word sounds.

拙 8 strokes

Components

  • 扌 radical left
  • 出 sound hint right

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

Common words

  • 巧拙 こうせつ skill; workmanship
  • 拙速 せっそく rough-and-ready; knocked-up
  • 拙劣 せつれつ clumsy; unskillful
  • 稚拙 ちせつ unskillful; childish

Easily confused with

These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.

Reference

Strokes
8
Kangxi radical
64
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1938 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+062D9