Meaning & readings
counter for cupfuls, wine glass, glass, toast
On’yomi ハイ
Kun’yomi さかずき
Origin
The character 杯 combines a wood component on the left, which indicates the object is made of wood, with a sound hint on the right that suggests how to pronounce it. In ancient times, drinking cups were commonly made from wood or bamboo, so the wood radical was a natural fit for this character. The right side provides a phonetic clue to help readers remember how to say the word, rather than contributing to its meaning. Over time, the character came to refer to any kind of cup or glass used for drinking, and eventually became a counter word for measuring cupfuls of liquid.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 75
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1235 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+0676F