字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

heal, cure

On’yomi リョウ

Origin

The character 療 combines the "illness" radical on the left, which marks this as a word related to sickness or medical treatment, with the component 尞 on the right that serves as a sound hint for the pronunciation. The left side tells you this character deals with health matters, while the right side historically guided speakers on how to pronounce the word. Together, they create a character that means to heal or cure—literally, the sound-marked character for treating illness.

療 17 strokes

Components

  • 疒 radical top-left wrap
  • 尞 sound hint position.tarec

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

Common words

  • 医療 いりょう medical treatment; medical care
  • 治療 ちりょう (medical) treatment; care
  • 診療 しんりょう diagnosis and treatment; medical care
  • 療法 りょうほう (method of) treatment; therapy
  • 療養 りょうよう recuperation; medical treatment
  • 療養所 りょうようじょ sanatorium
  • 診療所 しんりょうじょ clinic; medical office
  • 治療法 ちりょうほう method of treatment; cure

Related kanji

Same sound component 尞
Same radical

Easily confused with

These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.

Reference

Strokes
17
Kangxi radical
104
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#600 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+07642