Meaning & readings
death, die
On’yomi シ
Kun’yomi し.ぬ、し.に-
Origin
This character combines two components to express the concept of death. The left side, 歹, is a bone radical that hints at the physical body or skeleton. The right side, 匕, appears to represent a person or human form. Together, these parts create an image of a person becoming bones or returning to a skeletal state—essentially picturing the transformation that occurs at death. The character's simple structure makes it easy to write while clearly conveying this fundamental idea about mortality.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Compound ideographic (combined meanings).
Components
- 歹
- 匕
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 6
- Kangxi radical
- 78
- Grade
- Grade 3 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #229 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 3
- Unicode
- U+06B7B