Meaning & readings
occasion, side, edge, verge, dangerous, adventurous, indecent, time, when
Origin
This character combines a thread radical on the left, which suggests something fine or delicate, with the character for a festival on the right that serves as a sound hint for pronunciation. The thread radical initially related to the character's meaning of something thin or narrow, which evolved into the sense of an "edge" or "border" where things meet. Over time, the meaning broadened to include "occasion" — a specific point in time when things come together — and related senses like "verge" or "brink." The sound component doesn't tell you what the character means, but rather points toward how it should be pronounced.
Components
- ⻖
- 祭
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
- 14
- Kangxi radical
- 170
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #183 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+0969B