零 (Zero) — Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

zero, spill, overflow, nothing, cipher

On’yomi レイ

Kun’yomi ぜろ、こぼ.す、こぼ.れる

Origin

The character 零 combines rain (the top component) with a sound hint at the bottom that helps indicate its pronunciation. Historically, this character pictured rain dripping or falling, which connects to the meanings of overflow and spill. Over time, the character came to mean "zero" or "nothing," likely because a few scattered raindrops represent an amount so small it is almost nothing. The bottom component is there primarily to show how the character sounds, not to add meaning.

零 13 strokes

Components

雨 radical top
令 sound hint bottom

A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.

Common words

零下れいか below zero; sub-zero
零細れいさい insignificant; trifling
零時れいじ twelve o'clock; midnight
零点れいてん zero (points, marks); no marks
零れるこぼれる to spill; to fall out of
零すこぼす to spill; to drop

Easily confused with

These look alike but are unrelated in meaning — check the stroke that differs.

鈴 small bell, buzzer

Reference

Strokes: 13
Kangxi radical: 173
Formation type: Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade: Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank: #1217 (newspapers)
Former JLPT: level 2
Unicode: U+096F6