Meaning & readings

musical score, music, note, staff, table, genealogy

On’yomi フ

Origin

The character 譜 combines speech (言), the radical indicating this is about words or language, with 普, which serves as a sound hint for pronunciation. The connection to "musical score" likely developed because a musical score is a written system of notation—essentially a language for recording and communicating music. The same character was extended to mean genealogy, another kind of written record that preserves and transmits information across generations. This shows how the original sense of "written record or system" generalizes to different domains.

譜 19 strokes

Components

  • 言 radical left
  • 普 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

  • 楽譜 がくふ score; sheet music
  • 棋譜 きふ record of a game of go, shogi, chess, etc.
  • 系譜 けいふ genealogy; lineage
  • 年譜 ねんぷ chronological record
  • 譜面 ふめん sheet music; score

Reference

Strokes
19
Kangxi radical
149
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1919 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+08B5C