Meaning & readings
dark, foolish
On’yomi マイ、バイ
Kun’yomi くら.い、むさぼ.る
Origin
This character combines sun (日) on the left with the component 未, which represents something not yet mature or complete. Together they create the idea of a sun that is obscured or blocked—either literally dark, or metaphorically dim in understanding. The "not yet" sense of 未 paired with the brightness of the sun suggests something lacking in clarity or light, which naturally led to meanings like "dark" and by extension "foolish" or unable to see clearly. This is a straightforward combination of two visual ideas to express a state of darkness or obscurity.
Common words
- 曖昧 あいまい vague; ambiguous
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 9
- Kangxi radical
- 72
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- —
- Former JLPT
- —
- Unicode
- U+06627