字 Kanji Decipher

Meaning & readings

counter for cupfuls, wine glass, glass, toast

On’yomi ハイ
Kun’yomi さかずき

Origin

The character 杯 combines a wood component on the left, which indicates the object is made of wood, with a sound hint on the right that suggests how to pronounce it. In ancient times, drinking cups were commonly made from wood or bamboo, so the wood radical was a natural fit for this character. The right side provides a phonetic clue to help readers remember how to say the word, rather than contributing to its meaning. Over time, the character came to refer to any kind of cup or glass used for drinking, and eventually became a counter word for measuring cupfuls of liquid.

AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Phono-semantic (meaning + sound hint).

杯 8 strokes

Components

  • 木 radical left
  • 不 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

  • 一杯 いっぱい one cup (of); one glass (of)
  • 銀杯 ぎんぱい silver cup
  • 祝杯 しゅくはい toast; congratulatory cup
  • 満杯 まんぱい full
  • 乾杯 かんぱい cheers; bottoms-up
  • 賜杯 しはい Emperor's cup; trophy given by the Emperor
  • 精一杯 せいいっぱい the best one can do; one's best effort
  • 力一杯 ちからいっぱい with all one's strength; with might and main

Related kanji

Same sound component 不
Same radical

Reference

Strokes
8
Kangxi radical
75
Grade
Jōyō (secondary school)
Frequency rank
#1235 (newspapers)
Former JLPT
level 2
Unicode
U+0676F