Meaning & readings
accumulate, involvement, trouble, tie up, continually
On’yomi ルイ
Origin
This character combines two components to express the idea of accumulation. The bottom part, 糸 (thread), suggests something that builds up or connects together—threads piled on top of each other. The top part, 田, serves as a sound hint that roughly guides pronunciation rather than adding to the meaning. When you imagine threads accumulating, tangling, or binding together repeatedly, you get the sense of being tied up or troubled by involvement in something—which is why this character carries meanings like "accumulate," "trouble," and "continually."
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 11
- Kangxi radical
- 120
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Jōyō (secondary school)
- Frequency rank
- #1662 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+07D2F