Meaning & readings
clean, purify, cleanse, exorcise, Manchu Dynasty
Origin
This character combines water on the left, shown by the three-stroke water radical, with the sound component 争 on the right. The water radical makes sense because purification and cleansing inherently involve water—washing away dirt or spiritual impurity. The 争 component doesn't contribute meaning; it's there mainly to hint at how the character should be pronounced. Together they form a character that visually suggests the idea of water doing the work of making something clean.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- 氵
- 争
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 9
- Kangxi radical
- 85
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1383 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+06D44