Meaning & readings
un-, mistake, negative, injustice, non-
On’yomi ヒ
Kun’yomi あら.ず
Origin
This character most likely started as a picture of two people standing back-to-back or facing away from each other. The image of people turning away from each other or opposing one another naturally came to mean "opposite" or "against," which led to its use for negation and rejection. Over time, the two-person picture was simplified into the abstract strokes we see today, but the core meaning of opposition and "non-" remained. That's why 非 carries the sense of something being wrong, unjust, or the opposite of what is expected.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (非).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 8
- Kangxi radical
- 175
- Formation type
- Pictographic or simple
- Grade
- Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #472 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+0975E