Meaning & readings
plum
On’yomi バイ
Kun’yomi うめ
Origin
The character 梅 combines the wood radical on the left, which classifies this as a tree or plant, with the component 毎 on the right that serves as a sound hint for the pronunciation. The plum tree is a common plant in East Asia, so pairing the tree classifier with a phonetic hint made sense for creating this character. The right component doesn't contribute a meaning related to plums—it's purely there to guide how the character should be pronounced, similar to how many kanji pair a meaningful element with a sound guide.
Common words
- 紅梅 こうばい red-blossomed plum tree; red Japanese apricot
- 梅酒 うめしゅ ume liqueur; Japanese plum brandy
- 梅雨 つゆ (East Asian) rainy season (in Japan, usu. from early June to mid-July)
- 塩梅 あんばい seasoning; flavour
- 青梅 あおうめ unripe plum
- 梅干し うめぼし umeboshi; pickled dried ume
- 梅雨入り つゆいり entering the rainy season; beginning of the rainy season
- 梅雨明け つゆあけ end of the rainy season
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 10
- Kangxi radical
- 75
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 4 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #1232 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+06885