字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

box, chest, case, bin, railway car

On’yomi ソウ
Kun’yomi はこ

Origin

The character 箱 combines bamboo at the top with the character 相 at the bottom as a sound hint. Since boxes and containers were traditionally made from bamboo in East Asia, the bamboo component carries the meaning of "box." The 相 component doesn't add meaning but roughly indicates the pronunciation. Together they form a character that visually suggests a bamboo container while phonetically anchoring how it should be read.

箱 15 strokes

Components

  • 竹 radical top
  • 相 sound hint bottom

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

Common words

  • 重箱 じゅうばこ jūbako; multi-tiered food box
  • 本箱 ほんばこ bookcase
  • ゴミ箱 ごみばこ trash can; garbage can
  • 救急箱 きゅうきゅうばこ first-aid kit
  • 私書箱 ししょばこ post office box
  • 投票箱 とうひょうばこ ballot box

Related kanji

Same sound component 相
Same radical

Easily confused with

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

Reference

Strokes
15
Kangxi radical
118
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank
#1357 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+07BB1