貧 (Poverty) — Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

poverty, poor

On’yomi ヒン、ビン

Kun’yomi まず.しい

Origin

The character 貧 combines two parts to express poverty. The bottom component, 貝 (shell), serves as the classifier that signals this character relates to money and wealth — shells were historically used as currency. The top component, 分, provides a sound hint for pronunciation rather than contributing to the meaning. Together, the character evokes the idea of lacking money or resources, which is why it came to mean poverty or being poor.

貧 11 strokes

Components

分 sound hint top
貝 radical bottom

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

Common words

清貧せいひん poverty without selfish desire; honourable poverty (honorable)
貧血ひんけつ anemia; anaemia
貧困ひんこん poverty; penury
貧弱ひんじゃく poor; meagre
貧相ひんそう poor-looking; impoverished-looking
貧富ひんぷ wealth and poverty; rich and poor
貧乏びんぼう poverty-stricken; destitute
貧しいまずしい poor; needy

Easily confused with

These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.

Reference

Strokes: 11
Kangxi radical: 154
Formation type: Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade: Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
Frequency rank: #1211 (newspapers)
Former JLPT: level 2
Unicode: U+08CA7