Meaning & readings

marrow, pith, essence

On’yomi ズイ

Origin

This character combines a bone radical on the left with a sound component on the right. The bone radical makes sense because marrow is the soft tissue inside bones. The right side, built from characters suggesting "to have" or "possess," provides a sound hint for the pronunciation "zuI" rather than contributing to the meaning. Together, the bone classifier anchors the character to anatomy while the sound component signals how to pronounce it.

髄 19 strokes

Components

  • 骨 radical left
  • 有+⻌ sound hint right

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

Common words

  • 骨髄 こつずい bone marrow; medulla
  • 真髄 しんずい essence; quintessence
  • 脊髄 せきずい spinal cord

Reference

Strokes
19
Kangxi radical
188
Formation type
Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint)
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1652 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 1
Unicode
U+09AC4