Meaning & readings
plank, board, plate, stage
On’yomi ハン、バン
Kun’yomi いた
Origin
The character 板 combines the radical for wood (木) on the left, which tells you this character is about wooden objects, with the component 反 on the right, which serves as a sound hint for pronunciation. The character's meaning of "plank" or "board" comes naturally from the wood radical—these are flat wooden pieces used for building or as surfaces. The 反 component doesn't add meaning but instead guides how the character should be pronounced, roughly like "han" or "ban." Together, the visual hint of wood plus the sound guide created a character for the wooden boards and planks that were essential materials in construction and everyday life.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 75
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #926 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+0677F