Meaning & readings
discontinue, sever, cut off, abstain, interrupt, suppress, be beyond, without match, peerless, unparalleled
On’yomi ゼツ
Kun’yomi た.える、た.やす、た.つ
Origin
The character combines thread or string (the left side) with color or appearance (the right side). In ancient Chinese, the idea of a thread being cut or severed—losing its continuous color and form—came to represent breaking something off or stopping it completely. Over time, the visual metaphor of a severed thread expanded to mean discontinuing or abstaining from anything, not just physical cutting. The character's meaning now covers all ways of interrupting or suppressing something.
Common words
- 気絶 きぜつ faint; fainting
- 拒絶 きょぜつ refusal; rejection
- 根絶 こんぜつ eradication; extermination
- 絶縁 ぜつえん breaking off relations (with); severing one's connections (with)
- 絶叫 ぜっきょう scream; shriek
- 絶句 ぜっく being lost for words; becoming speechless
- 絶交 ぜっこう breaking off a relationship; permanent breach of friendship
- 絶好 ぜっこう best; ideal
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 12
- Kangxi radical
- 120
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #784 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+07D76