Meaning & readings

obese, fat

On’yomi ボウ

Origin

The character 肪 combines the flesh radical 月 on the left with 方 on the right, which serves as a sound hint for the pronunciation. The flesh component makes the connection to body tissue, while 方 guides how the character should be read aloud. Together they create a character specifically for fatty tissue or being obese—using the body-part classifier to anchor the meaning while the sound component helps speakers remember how to pronounce it.

肪 8 strokes

Components

  • 月 radical left
  • 方 sound hint right

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

Common words

  • 脂肪 しぼう fat; grease

Reference

Strokes
8
Kangxi radical
130
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1878 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+080AA