Meaning & readings
retreat, withdraw, retire, resign, repel, expel, reject
On’yomi タイ
Kun’yomi しりぞ.く、しりぞ.ける、ひ.く、の.く、の.ける、ど.く
Origin
The character 退 combines two elements to express the idea of moving backward. The left component 艮 represents stopping or halting, while the right component (the walking radical) indicates movement or action. Together they suggest the action of stopping forward motion and instead moving in reverse or away — which captures the meaning of retreat, withdraw, or step back. Over time, this visual combination of "halt" plus "go" became the standard way to write this character, even as its pronunciations and exact shades of meaning evolved.
Components
- 艮
- ⻌
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 9
- Kangxi radical
- 162
- Formation type
- Compound ideographic (combined meanings)
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #424 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+09000