Meaning & readings

pick, take, fetch, take up

On’yomi サイ
Kun’yomi と.る

Origin

This character combines a hand radical on the left, which signals an action done by hand, with the component on the right that serves as a sound hint for the pronunciation. The component doesn't contribute to the meaning but tells you roughly how to say the character. Together, the hand radical and sound hint create a character meaning to pick or take something by hand, since picking and gathering are natural manual actions. Over time, the meaning expanded to include the more general sense of "take" or "fetch."

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).

11 strokes

Components

  • radical left
  • 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

  • 採掘 さいくつ mining; digging
  • 採決 さいけつ vote; ballot
  • 採算 さいさん profit
  • 採取 さいしゅ picking; collecting
  • 採集 さいしゅう collecting; gathering
  • 採択 さいたく adoption; selection
  • 採炭 さいたん coal mining; coal extraction
  • 採点 さいてん marking; grading

Reference

Strokes
11
Kangxi radical
64
Grade
Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#607 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+063A1