字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

sack, bag, pouch

On’yomi タイ、ダイ
Kun’yomi ふくろ
Nanori てい、ない、ぶく

Origin

The character 袋 combines the component 衣, which means cloth or clothing, with 代 above it as a sound hint. The 衣 part makes sense because bags and sacks are typically made from fabric or cloth material. The 代 component doesn't add to the meaning but signals roughly how the character should be pronounced. By pairing the practical material (cloth) with a sound indicator, the character effectively represents a cloth container — a bag or sack.

袋 11 strokes

Components

  • 代 sound hint top
  • 衣 radical bottom

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

Common words

  • お袋 おふくろ (one's) mother
  • 胃袋 いぶくろ stomach
  • 紙袋 かみぶくろ paper bag
  • 手袋 てぶくろ glove; mitten
  • 足袋 たび tabi; traditional split-toe socks
  • 袋小路 ふくろこうじ blind alley; cul-de-sac

Related kanji

Same sound component 代
Same radical

Reference

Strokes
11
Kangxi radical
145
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1125 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+0888B