Meaning & readings
overdo, exceed, go beyond, error
Origin
This character combines a walking radical on the left, which shows the basic idea of movement, with a sound component on the right that hints at the character's pronunciation. The walking element suggests the physical act of going or passing, while the sound component helps indicate how the character should be read. Over time, the meaning expanded from simply "to pass by or go beyond" to include the broader sense of exceeding a limit or going too far, which is why it also means "error" or "mistake"—when you go beyond what is proper, you've made an error.
Components
- 咼
- ⻌
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Easily confused with
These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.
Reference
- Strokes
- 12
- Kangxi radical
- 162
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #285 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+0904E