Meaning & readings

diarrhea

On’yomi

Origin

The character combines the radical 疒, which marks diseases and physical ailments, with , which serves as a sound hint for the pronunciation "ri." The 疒 component on the left tells you this character names a sickness, while guides how to pronounce it. Together they create a character that specifically names a digestive illness, building the meaning through the disease classifier and anchoring the sound through the phonetic component.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).

12 strokes

Components

  • radical top-left wrap
  • sound hint tarec

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

  • 下痢 げり diarrhea; diarrhoea
  • 赤痢 せきり dysentery

Reference

Strokes
12
Kangxi radical
104
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#2037 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+075E2