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."

累 11 strokes

Components

  • 田 sound hint top
  • 糸 radical bottom

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

Common words

  • 累計 るいけい cumulative total; accumulated total
  • 累進 るいしん successive promotion; gradual progression
  • 累積 るいせき accumulation

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