Meaning & readings
domesticate, raise, keep, feed
On’yomi シ
Kun’yomi か.う
Nanori かい
Origin
The left part, the food radical, signals that this character involves eating or feeding. The right component, pronounced "shi," is a sound hint that helps you pronounce the whole character. Together they form a character meaning to raise or keep an animal—the idea of providing food for a creature in your care. The combination of "food" with this particular sound created a character that captures the sense of domesticating and maintaining animals by feeding them.
Components
- 飠
- 司
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 13
- Kangxi radical
- 184
- Formation type
- Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
- Grade
- Grade 5 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #1392 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 1
- Unicode
- U+098FC