Meaning & readings
proportion, comparatively, divide, cut, separate, split
Origin
The character 割 combines two parts to show the idea of cutting or dividing. On the right is the knife radical, 刂, which directly represents the cutting action. On the left is 害, which serves as a sound hint to suggest how the character should be pronounced, rather than adding meaning to the picture. Together, the knife radical gives the basic sense of slicing something apart, while the sound component anchors the specific pronunciation for Chinese and Japanese speakers.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).
Components
- 害
- 刂
A sound hint component points at the character’s pronunciation, not its meaning — don’t read a meaning into it.
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 12
- Kangxi radical
- 18
- Grade
- Grade 6 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #318 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 2
- Unicode
- U+05272