字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

marketing, sell, trade

On’yomi ハン

Origin

The character 販 combines two parts: the left component 貝 (shell) is the meaningful part, originally representing valuable goods or money in ancient Chinese, since shells were used as currency. The right component 反 serves as a sound hint, helping readers know roughly how to pronounce the character. Together, the character came to mean trading or selling—the exchange of valuable goods.

販 11 strokes

Components

  • 貝 radical left
  • 反 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

  • 再販 さいはん resale
  • 市販 しはん putting on the market; putting on sale
  • 販売 はんばい sale; sales
  • 販路 はんろ market (for goods, services, etc.); outlet (for selling)
  • 販促 はんそく sales promotion
  • 自販 じはん automatic selling
  • 通販 つうはん online shopping; e-commerce
  • 物販 ぶっぱん sale of goods (as opposed to services)

Related kanji

Same sound component 反
Same radical

Reference

Strokes
11
Kangxi radical
154
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#627 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+08CA9