Meaning & readings
hinder, hurt, harm
Origin
The character 障 combines the "hand" radical on the left, which relates to physical action or touching, with the component 章 on the right that serves as a sound hint for pronunciation. The hand radical points toward the sense of "blocking" or "hindering" — actions performed by hands or limbs. Together, the character pictures the idea of something that gets in the way or obstructs, whether physically touching you or standing as an obstacle. Over time, the meaning broadened from literal blocking to more abstract notions of harm or hurt.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- ⻖
- 章
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 14
- Kangxi radical
- 170
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #742 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+0969C